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BOHN'S SELECT LIBRARY. 





OLIVER CROMWELL. 


OLIVER CROMWELL 


BY - 


REINHOLD PAULI 


TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 


LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS 
YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN 


1888 
IM 


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LIE is 3 a Ai 





CHISWICK PRESS :—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CI, TOOKs COURT, 
CHANCERY LANE, 


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EDITOR’S PREFACE. 


HE following essay by the late Prof. Pauli, 
whose interest in and knowledge of English 
constitutional history has been evinced by other and 
larger works, appeared originally in the series entitled 
Der Neue Plutarch (Brockhaus, Leipzig). 

The translation is a literal one, and the only liberties 
which have been taken with the original consist in the 
division of the work into chapters and the addition of 
a few footnotes, 


CONTENTS. 


TUDORS AND STUARTS N 
Kine Cuaruss I... 
CROMWELL's Earıy Lire . 
KinG AND PARLIAMENT 
Civit War 

SUPREMITY OF PARLIAMENT 
THe CoMMONWEALTH 
SUBJUGATION OF SCOTLAND 
PARLIAMENT SUPERSEDED 
CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR 
CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR u 
CROMWELL as Prorecror : 


DEATH OF CROMWELL : 


80 
101 
116 
128 
145 
162 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


CHAPTER I. 
TUDORS AND STUARTS. 


THE TUDORS.—HENRY VIII.—-MARY.— ELIZABETH.— THE 
SECRET OF THEIR POWER.—THE STUARTS.—-THEIR 
CHARACTER. —-CONTRAST BETWEEN ELIZABETH AND 
HER SUCCESSOR. — JAMES I.—-RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF 
THE COUNTRY.—THE PURITANS.—- THEIR PRINCIPLES 
AND DOCTRINES.—JAMES’S HYPOCRISY. —-DORT SYNOD, 


HE Tudors, under whose reign England’s eman- 
cipation from the Roman yoke was completed, 
not only promoted the vigorous growth of the nation 
in other parts of Britain, but paved the way for our 
dominion across the sea, and raised up a powerful 
kingdom from almost hopeless destruction. How- 
ever extraordinary it may appear, Henry VIII. and 
his two daughters, both Catholic Mary and Protestant 
Elizabeth, were powerful and even popular rulers. 
The secret of their power lay in this: they knew 
how to assert their will in the face of the ever- 
changing streams of conflicting opinions, and made 
judicious use. of an older and more lawful authority 
than the mere right of conquest and conventional 
B 


2 OLIVER CROMWELL, 


treaty, whereby their race obtained the crown. That 
authority was based on the ancient and fundamental 
laws of the realm, which, though subservient to the 
monarchy, yet allowed landed proprietors of all classes 
that ample scope for individual activity which they 
had been accustomed to for centuries. 

The Tudors did not indeed attack the principle of 
self-government in its general outlines, but in fact 
used it as they thought fit, and made it serve the 
ends of the most awful and unbearable caprices of 
tyranny. 

It was certainly not affection which bound the 
English people to Elizabeth, even in her palmiest 
days, but the great majority regarded with deep 
veneration a queen who had, with such unrivalled 
success, guarded and upheld the country’s honour in 
a style so truly regal. 

After her death, the right of succession devolved 
upon an alien race, nurtured in an atmosphere of 
Spanish despotism, and holding political opinions 
which, up to that time, had been hardly dreamed of in 
England. The Stuarts came with their jus divinum, 
with their monarchy of divine origin, which was 
diametrically opposed to all the laws of humanity. 

Who does not know the tragic fate of this ill- 
starred house? No other family, not even that of the 
Bourbons, reminds one so forcibly of those ancient 
Theban dynasties, whose mournful fortunes were de- 
picted in the Greek tragedies, as warning examples to 
a free nation. In more recent ages, no race has, with 
equal wantonness, called down the curse of its country 
and the wrath of Heaven, until at length the storm 
broke, and annihilated the monarchy. In the long 


TUDORS AND STUARTS. 3 


line ofthe Stuarts, we cannot call to mind one who 
could ever have been adequateto the political demands 
of his country, who could have regained the affection 
of his subjects and atoned for the sins of his fathers. 
They one and all misused the precious talent entrusted 
to them, and sinned against their own kingdom, and 
when weighed in the balance they have indeed been 
found wanting. 

What a contrast between Elizabeth and her imme- 
diate successor! During the life of the old Queen 
but few storms had passed over the land, and by her 
last acts she bade a dignified and majestic farewell to 
her country and subjects. But James I., on his acces- 
sion, proved a weak, mean-spirited creature, talking 
his broad Scotch with a halting tongue,—aknock-kneed 
coward and thorough pedant, for ever prating about 
his royal abilities. He delighted in stumbling through 
the toughest works on theology, and flatterers called 
him the “ Solomon of the North;” but the celebrated 
envoy of Henry IV. declared that now he had seen the 
wisest fool on a throne. 

But what was even worse, though Mary Stuart 
had given her life for her faith, her son James never 
seriously supported his unhappy mother, but had 
learned to curry favour alike with Catholics and Cal- 
vinists, so as not to spoil his chances of the Englısh 
crown. Aslong as he was making unsuccessful efforts 
in Scotland to oppose the popular church there by 
the restoration of the Episcopacy, he thought fit to 
jeer at the Anglicans and their “ mutilated missal ;” 
but no sooner did he find himself on the English 
throne, or as he expressed it, “in the Land of Promise,” 
than he took for his motto, “No bishop, no king.” 


4 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Thenceforth the crowned pedagogue lost no oppor- 
tunity of impressing upon Lords and Commons alike 
that all privileges depended on his own gracious 
pleasure, and that his sovereign will was stronger than 
any laws however absolute. 

In twenty years he had brought matters to such a 
pitch, that the struggle between might and right be- 
came perfectly chronic. He also took it upon himself 
to arbitrate between his Catholic and Protestant sub- 
jects, although he did not scruple to leave his hapless 
son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, to his fate at the 
Weisser Berg, near Prague. This was another sore 
point in the heart of every true patriot. | 

But the evil which England in particular was suf- 
fering from, though it was common to the age, was of 
a religious rather than a political nature, and was 
fostered and increased by the many devious and 
crooked paths whereby the Reformation crept into this 
country. True, when first its breath was felt, there 
was, as ın Germany, no lack of subtle and independent 
spirits, who, having cast off the authority of Rome, 
and even denied the traditions of St. Augustine, fear- 
lessly studied the Bible for themselves. But the 
people had no idea of its rational perusal, and in our 
politically united country there could of course be no 
question of starting a fresh system altogether, like that 
of the early Christians for instance, especially since 
the strong arm of Henry VIII. had put a decided 
bar to the decentralizing influences of the great re- 
ligious convulsions, by substituting his own authority 
for that of the Pope, and making the Episcopacy de- 
pendent upon the crown. And, though with regard 
to the people the royal authority was limited, still in 


TUDORS AND STUARTS. 5 


ecclesiastical matters it became perfectly absolute; and 
even after having entirely broken with Rome, the 
state, from a spirit of contradiction, endeavoured to 
retain the Catholic religion. It was comparatively 
late when, under Edward VI.,sundry reformed doctrines 
of Genevan origin, particularly those regarding the 
Sacrament, found their way into England. 

Even when, in consequence of Henry VIII.s six 
articles, and Mary’s Catholic reaction, crowds of the 
new believers fled to the continent, and were fa- 
miliarized with the advanced doctrines of German and 
Swiss communities—when an ever-increasing number 
was seized with a wish for a complete change of re- 
ligion and that absolute liberty of conscience, the lovo 
of which is deeply rooted in the Germanic mind—eveu 
then the strong-minded Tudors persisted in restraining 
that inclination to autonomy, which had made itself 
felt since the middle of the sixteenth century, by a 
rigid code of laws both parliamentary and ecclesias- 
tical. The future of the country and the people thus 
depended on the issue of a conflict between two 
crowing religious systems. 

The Anglo-Catholics, whose ecclesiastical ideal was 
apparently the fifth century, believed in an authority 
combined with extended Episcopal powers; and, united 
with the state, they developed great capacities for 
government. As they retained the entire traditions 
of the church, together with an almost unchanged 
ritual, and doctrines leaving little room for specula- 
tion, there was a good chance of their returning to 
Rome, especially when sundry High Church parties 
and individuals began to think they might bow to the 
infallibility of the Pope. But, fortunately, the new 


6 OLIVER CROMWELL, 


church contained a good many conciliatory and latitu- 
dinarian principles, and so was found broad and 
elastic enough to suit various opinions; and during 
the centuries of struggle it also developed a critical, 
learned, and rational spirit. 

The Puritans in every stage of their history stood 
up for liberty of conscience and civil independence, 
regarding the Holy Scriptures as the word of God, 
and refusing to accept any dogmatic interpretation. 
To them, as to the Chosen People, the Bible was 
as the law and the prophets, which can neither be 
shaken nor improved upon. But they also upheld 
the awful doctrine of predestination, which Calvin 
founded upon Augustine, whereby man is not a free 
agent. The teachings of the early reformers, such as 
Tyndale, Latimer, and Ridley, contained the germs of. 
both doctrines, but in the second half of the century 
their respective adherents became more aggressively 
independent. 

The Anglicans upheld the hierarchy, but would 
concede neither the independence of the human will, 
nor their faith in the growth and development of the 
church. But the Presbyterians considered every 
divine law as immutable from the very beginning ; 
their beau-ideal of a state and community being the 
reign of the judges of the Old Testament, who ruled 
immediately under Jehovah in the clouds. 

No doubt this theory was diametrically opposed to 
the real state as it had existed until then. The sect 
which prided itself on its nickname of “ Puritans” 
increased rapidly, and fiercely attacked the Episcopal 
church, with its tawdry shows and ceremonies, for the 
chief reason that it was united with the government. 


TUDORS AND STUARTS. ic 


But more than this, even under Elizabeth they developed 
into a regular opposition party, and dared to remind 
the people of their all but forgotten charter of freedom. 
They certainly had a distinct tendency to set them- 
selves up as the state, but in spite of several severe 
collisions, the great Queen had always been careful 
not to arouse the enmity of this particular sect. She 
especially required their services in the national and 
religious conflict with Spain, who wanted to monopo- 
lize everything,—land, and sea, and sky; and how- 
ever she might dislike the duty, she was bound 
to protect the Scotch and Dutch Calvinists, who had 
thrown off the existing dominions, and were the first 
to introduce ideas about popular independence. But 
in spite of her strictness, Elizabeth was always a 
gracious queen to those among her subjects who 
ventured to make a stand against the demands of 
Anglican uniformity. 

How different was her Scotch successor, who, freed 
from the galling influences of his native country, 
threw off his Presbyterian mask, and endeavoured 
with short-sighted spite to foster the spirit of opposi- 
tion in civil, agricultural and religious matters. At 
the synod of Hampton Court ın 1604 he certainly 
expressed a desire to unite under Episcopal rule the 
two parties, which were as yet not entirely separated, 
but contrived nevertheless to stir up his two kingdoms 
against one another. It is impossible to say where it 
would have ended, if some real and imaginary Jesuiti- 
cal plots had not scared his cowardly soul, and shaken 
his confidence in his own royal perspicuity. 

It will be remembered that at the Dort Synod in 
1619, James caused the English church to be repre- 


8 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


sented in the Calvinistic spirit. But the encourage- 
ment from Holland, and the breach between the 
Arminians and the victorious Contra-remonstrants, 
raised a fresh spirit of opposition in England against 
the strictly Calvinistic Puritans. The Arminian 
doctrine was originally inclined to toleration and 
veneration for the royal prerogative, combined with 
the principle of “ passive obedience ;” consequently 
James I. and his bishops thought to find in it a 
fresh bulwark against certain High Church tenden- 
cies, which had as yet declared themselves neither 
for Romanism nor Puritanism. The jus divinum of 
the King went hand in hand with the apostolic theory 
of the Episcopacy. Thus, at the death of James, 
thanks to his wretched caprices, the religious aspect 
of the country was a very sad one, ‘The Puritans and 
Presbyterians, far from being suppressed, boasted of 
their biblical institution, and strenuously opposed the 
restoration of the Episcopacy in Scotland, ‘while in 
England they were continually developing fresh sects. 
Indeed, the favour shown to Arminian doctrines by the 
Episcopal church, was anything but advantageous to 
the national authority, and ended in a regular harvest 
for the Jesuits. 


CHAPTER II. 


KING CHARLES I 


CHARLES I.—CHANGE OF PUBLIC OPINION REGARDING HIS 
CHARACTER.——-BUCKINGHAM HIS EVIL GENIUS.—WAR 
WITH SPAIN.—HE ASSISTS THE HUGUENOTS AT LA RO- 
CHELLE.—-CHARLES’S INSINCERITY IN HIS ATTEMPTS TO 
RECONCILE THE TWO CHURCHES.—ARCHBISHOP LAUD, 
—PETITION OF RIGHT.—LORD STRAFFORD.—JOHN 
HAMPDEN AND THE SHIP-MONEY.—RIOTS IN SCOTLAND. 
—-GREAT COUNCIL AT YORK,—LONG PARLIAMENT.— 
OLIVER CROMWELL. 


HE head of the new dynasty, whose useless ex- 
travagance had plunged the country into debt, 
left his son and heir a legacy of difficult problems— 
material, political and ecclesiastical. But Charles I., 
endowed with energetic, and in some respects fas- 
cinating qualities, was a very different person. And 
yet how quickly the old enthusiastic, almost idolatrous 
ideas about him have faded, especially since of late the 
royal martyr has been excluded from the calendar of 
the Church of England. 
The character of this prince has been now finally 
exposed, but this is due rather to dispassionate his- 
torical research than to the intolerant liberal spirit of 


10 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


the present day. Without in the least wishing to de- 
tract from the charm of a refined nature,— for he was 
king, cavalier, and gentleman, every inch of him,—and 
without disputing the truly tragic likeness of Van 
Dyck’s portrait, still, we are now able to fathom 
Charles’s intentions and inclinations in the minutest 
manner, and can only pronounce them as decidedly 
pernicious. He possessed even fewer talents than his 
father, and was narrow-minded and self-willed into 
the bargain; but on the strength of his “divine right 
of kings,” he wanted to obtain unlimited sway over 
church and state, and only be answerable for his 
actions to the Most High. He did not hesitate to 
make use of the most tyrannous and cowardly means, 
and pledged his royal word continually, though he 
never scrupled to break it; indeed, the mortal injuries 
sustained by both church and state, those two spheres 
of the national brain, must be almost entirely laid at 
his door. 

How capriciously and fruitlessly he was constantly 
altering his relations with the great powers; conse- 
quently, at the moment of his own ruin, he could not 
count on effectual assistance from any one of them. 
In his early days, while under the influence of his evil 
genius, the Duke of Buckingham, he threw over the 
treaty for the Spanish marriage, and eventually formed 
a French alliance. 

When the war with Spain was concluded, Charles 
attacked France, then under the sway of Richelieu, and 
sent assistance to the Huguenots at La Rochelle. Then 
followed humiliating negotiations with both powers, 
and with the Emperor of Austria. This could certainly 
neither bring glory to England, nor possibly reinstate 


KING CHARLES TI. 11 


his nephew the Elector Palatine, which must have been 
one of Charles’s most cherished wishes. What 
frightful internal misgovernment all this proves! As 
he was firmly resolved to make the Episcopacy the 
foundation of his absolute authority, he could not have 
been sincere in negotiating with Rome about the re- 
conciliation of the two churches, and still less could he 
do justice to the national principles of the Anglican 
church. 

He selected a most fatal adviser in William Land, 
who, from being Bishop of London was raised to the 
arch-bishopric of Canterbury, to replace the late Cal- 
vinist primate. This prelate did not lack many noble 
and learned qualities, but possessed a narrow-minded, 
intolerant, and aggressive spirit. This “little urchin,”’ 
as & clerical rival not inaptly calls him, wished to 
enforce decency and uniformity of ceremonial through- 
out the Episcopal church, which was now entirely inde- 
pendent of Rome, and, with the help of the High 
Commission Court, tried hard to make his brothers in 
office, and even the hated Puritans, adopt his views. 

By more or less compounding with Rome, by 
allowing religious orders to surround the Queen, and 
by mitigating the penal laws in favour of the adherents 
to the ancient faith, the horror of popery was excited 
into a popular frenzy ; indeed, the middle classes looked 
upon the sacrifice of the mass as the purest idolatry. 

But how could the King and his archbishop have 
pursued a more mistaken and injudicious policy, in 
their opposition to the gloomy Jewish Sabbatarianism 
of the Puritans, than by inciting the people from the 
pulpits to join in Sunday amusements which they did 
not want; and then, when men belonging to the 


12 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


higher classes wrote against this proceeding, to have 
them arrested and mercilessly condemned to the pillory 
and the loss of their ears ? 

Laud thought the hand of the executioner would 
force the spirit of a liberty-loving people into submis- 
sion to his ideal church and obedience to the King. 
As to Charles, he liked nothing better, for in the first 
years of his reign he had called three parliaments, but, 
thanks to the stinginess and suspicion of the classes, 
had never received enough to satisfy his high-flown 
wants. Consequently he had recourse to a forced 
loan, and anyone who refused payment was at once 
arrested. Then the Parliament, having bravely tried 
to stand up for its rights, and incited by a few really 
able statesmen, insisted on the discontinuance of such 
abuses by the celebrated “ Petition of Right,” in May, 
1628. 

The King, momentarily driven into a corner, de- 
clared in his speech from the throne, in the customary 
formula “ that right be done according to the laws and 
customs of the realm,” but, as usual, with the tacit 
understanding that if ever he should be in the wrong, 
his judges were to pronounce him in the right. 

In the following year Parliament met again, though 
the people had been irritated by fresh deeds of violence, 
for the purpose of granting a bill for tonnage and 
poundage, which the King seemed to consider as an 
hereditary prerogative once and for all. Then came 
stormy scenes and unmistakable opposition. But 
when the King prorogued the Parliament with no in- 
tention of calling it again for the present, there could 
be no longer any question as to who had sinned against 
the country’s rights: the arbitrary King, or the repre- 


KING CHARLES I 13 


sentatives of the people, who, with admirable perseve- 
rance, had learned to make use of the legal statutes and 
precedents of past years. 

Then followed those eleven years withoutany Parlia- 
ment, when the seed was sown broadcast over the land 
which was shortly to bear such terrible fruit. And 
Charles, surrounded as he had been till then by second- 
rate talent among Lords, Commons, and Clergy, de- 
cidedly overrated his powers. Who can tell whether 
even his obstinate and short-sighted will would not 
have given in sooner than it did, but for the secession 
from the ranks of the opposition of one or two ambi- 
tious and resolute men. 

Above all others, Thomas Wentworth, afterwards 
Lord Strafford, attained the highest influence. At 
one time, doubtless not without good reason, he op- 
posed Buckingham rather than the. King, but since 
1628 he had deserted his liberal associates, and pro-. 
claimed himself more and more openly as Charles’s 
champion. First he was Lord President of the North, 
an office, the legality of which, was not altogether 
beyond dispute ; and when, in 1633, he was made Lord 
Deputy for Ireland, he increased the demands of 
absolute authority step by step, especially in his inti- 
mate connection with Laud, when the latter assumed 
the highest ecclesiastical jurisdiction. These two took 
for their motto the words “ Thorough and thorough,” 
and in their celebrated correspondence they exchanged 
their inmost feelings and mutually supported one 
another. The more moderate parties, who were 
faithful to throne and altar, and yet had some respect 
for their country’s constitution and liberty of con- 
science, found just as little favour in their eyes as 


14 OLIVER CROMWELL, 


their more open antagonists. They were Charles’s 
intimate advisers, when, with boundless despotism, he 
obtained what he wanted by ruthless taxation, mono- 
polies, long-forgotten subsidies, and medizeval fines. 
Under this category comes the ship-money, which the 
King decreed was to be forthcoming without a bill 
having been granted by Parliament, and which has 
become famous through John Hampden’s manly re- 
fusal to pay his beggarly share of 20s. But by this 
time Wentworth had firmly established the English 
church in Ireland, proving by his administration in 
the Emerald Isle, that the King, either with or without 
a Parliament, could reign there and elsewhere with 
absolute authority. 

This was the time chosen for sending a most out- 
rageous challenge to Scotland, the home of the mon- 
archy. Lord Strafford was doing his bestin Ireland to 
lay at least the foundations of a standing army, a thing 
hitherto unheard of in the English state, while hun- 
dreds of hberal-minded people emigrated to the virgin 
soil of North America; and even men like Pym and 
Hampden, despairing of the future of their native 
country, thought seriously of emigration. 

In the meanwhile, Laud, the clerical censor, tried 
hard to force the Anglican discipline and ritual on the 
Northern Presbyterians, who had hitherto been left 
unmolested, but in so doing brought down a hornet’s 
nest about his ears. The idea was to dissolve the 
General Assembly in Scotland, as well as the Parlia- 
ment in England. But the Presbyterians would never 
have anything to say to ecclesiastical supremacy. On 
the contrary, the great majority of the nation, from 
the lowest to the highest, joined hands with the clergy 


KING CHARLES 1. 15 


in this respect, and offered a more than merely passive 
resistance. Who has not heard how, when the in- 
troduction of Laud’s liturgy was ordered in all churches, 
St. Giles, in Edinburgh, gave the signal fora universal 
outburst against popery and idolatry, which, it was de- 
clared, would never be forced upon the free and inde- 
pendent church of an equally free country. 

The Scotch, on the strength of their spiritual and 
temporal right of convention, followed the example of 
the Israelites, and assembled their covenant in the 
name of the Lord. In spite of several clever moves 
on the part of the King and his bishop, yet in No- 
vember, 1638, hundreds of armed knights and black- 
cloaked servants of the Word arrayed themselves in 
long gloomy rows under the bare and lofty roof of 
Glasgow Cathedral. This was no mere synod for the 
discussion of a doctrine, but a genuine national as- 
sembly, the first of its kind recorded in history. The 
consequence of this resistance was war between Eng- 
land and Scotland, and, inour own country, the triumph 
of the Commonwealth. 

Even then the King thought to assert his preroga- 
tive and force the hierarchy on the rebellious North, 
by having recourse to arms. But how could the old 
feudal, ill-prepared troops, raised among a half-hearted 
people, compare with the infinitely more united Scotch 
army, commanded by men who had learned the art of 
war under the Protestant hero Gustavus Adolphus ? 
As yet, however, the desire to discuss the points at 
issue weighed down all other considerations, and while 
thus negotiating, the decision was postponed. 

But the King, who foresaw that no good could come 
from a French intervention, soon took up the quarrel 


16 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


again, and on the 13th of April found it necessary 
to call a Parliament. Lord Strafford had just ob- 
tained subsidies from the Irish states, and raised 
a considerable force on the other side of the Irish 
channel. 

What if it were possible, by making a few con- 
cessions on the subjects which were being so sorely 
discussed, to fan the flame of England’s hatred against 
her northern neighbours? But the public spirit, so 
long repressed, asserted itself by deciding against the 
government in the next elections. The opposition 
party, headed by John Pym, and other powerful in- 
tellects, had assumed gigantic proportions, and thanks 
to its puritanical and parliamentary spirit, regarded 
the Scotch as brothers in misfortune rather than na- 
tional enemies. 

It was the greatest folly for the government to de- 
mand that subsidies should be paid in advance, when 
they would not even promise to discuss the numerous 
political, religious, and private difficulties. The King 
dissolved this short Parliament as early as May 5th, 
as after all that had come and gone, he could not clear 
himself of the suspicion that, with the aid of some of 
his adherents such as Laud, Strafford, and the Duke 
of Hamilton, he wished to domineer over England, as 
Richelieu was doing over France. The fatal con- 
sequences of this impression soon made themselves 
felt. For when war really did break out in the sum- 
mer, the Scots at once crossed the border. 

The government applied in vain for loans to towns 
of which the great majority had joined the opposition. 
The metropolis was in a restless and unsettled state. 
The great council of peers was summoned at York as 


KING CHARLES 1. 17 


it was on one occasion in the thirteenth century,! but in 
vain; they had long since lost their hold on the purse- 
strings of the treasury. As a matter of fact, the 
system which had been followed hitherto had prac- 
tically failed, for a temporary agreement had perforce 
to be made with the enemy who still remained on 
English soil, and this threw a double burden on the 
northern counties. It was in a very different spirit 
from the time before that the King once more sum- 
moned a Parliament, to satisfy the urgent demands of 
his opponents. 

This was the “‘ Long Parliament,” which soon became 
so famous. Three-fifths of the members of the late 
Parliament had been re-elected, besides sundry knights 
and civilians distinguished by their orthodox Protes- 
tant opinions, and their opposition to the violation 
against the old laws, as practised by the King and his 
bishop. The great majority espoused the popular 
opinion. 

Of course in those days the relations between aristo- 
crats and democrats, or as they soon came to be called, 
Cavaliers and Roundheads, were very different from what 
they are now. Champions for the people’s rights and 
liberty of conscience were found in the highest circles, 
and were represented by a considerable number of 
peers. Even the privileged classes were split up into 
factions. The stronghold of the Royalist nobility was 
in the north-west of England, where in our days 
Radicalism is rampant in the great industrial centres ; 
while the counties who were faithful to the constitution 
were found in the neighbourhood of London, with its 


* 1215, when the barons met at Runnymede aud compiled 
Mugna Charta. 


3; 


18 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


parliamentary opinions and monied citizens. There 
were besides endless petty factions in every county ; 
indeed, every clique of landed proprietors was more 
or less split up. But amongst the tried partisans 
and individual fanatics, there now appeared at St. 
Stephen’s several men who were shortly to attain un- 
dreamed-of greatness. 

One of these was a man of about forty, who was at 
that time but little known beyond his own county. 
That true gentleman, Sir Philip Warwick, who was 
also a member of parliament, thus describes him in 
his recollections: “ I came into the House one morn- 
ing, well clad; and perceived a gentleman speaking, 
whom I knew not,— very ordinarily apparelled, for it 
was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been 
made by an ill country tailor ; his linen was plain and 
not very clean, and I remember a speck or two of 
blood upon his little band, which was not much larger 
than his collar. His hat was without a hatband.. His 
stature was of a good size; his sword stuck close to his 
side; his countenance swolnand reddish, his voice sharp 
and untuneable,and his eloquence full of fervour. ... 
I sincerely profess, it lessened much my reverence for 
that Great Council, for this gentleman was very much 
hearkened unto.” It was Oliver Cromwell. 

Whata long time was to elapse before the character 
of this extraordinary man, so diabolically distorted by 
the fury of the Royalists, could be seen in its true 
light. James Heath’s libellous volume, entitled 
“Flagellum, or the Life and Death of Oliver Cromwell 
the late Usurper” (1663), was at first only succeeded 
by scanty biographies, which did not even obtain their 
information from trustworthy sources. So his person- 


KING CHARLES I | 19 


ality was very soon forgotten both by Whigs and 
Tories. Even the unbiassed and sharpsighted mind of 
Henry Hallam was not capable of doing him justice. 
It is hardly surprising that the novelist Guizot, though 
a Protestant, has not succeeded any better. Macaulay, 
inspired by Forster’s work on the politicians of the 
Commonwealth, and undeterred by the rugged Teu- 
tonic character, has proudly and generously pointed 
out to his countrymen what sort of man this was, 
whose flesh and blood was the same as their own. 
More recently, Thomas Carlyle has faithfully collected 
all the Protector’s letters and speeches which could 
be rescued “from the lethean quagmires where they 
lay buried,” and once more gave life to that mighty 
soul. 

It is quite natural that Ranke, the German his- 
torian, to whom we owe many valuable revelations 
about Cromwell, should be faithful to his principles, 
and treat him in a purely objective manner. Much 
about many a dark spot in his life will always remain 
merely a matter of opinion. But one who had not 
studied these authors would find it no easy matter to 
give a truthful idea of that age, and of the life, 
struggles, beginnings, and creations of its most 
powerful representative, 


CHAPTER II. 


CROMWELL’S EARLY LIFE. 


THE CROMWELL KINDRED.—ABSURD STORIES ABOUT OLIVER’S 
CHILDHOOD.—HIS EDUCATION AND EARLY YEARS.— 
HIS MARRIAGE.—HIS FIRST APPEARANCE IN POLITICAL 
LIFE,—DRAINAGE OF THE FENS. 


HE family of Cromwell was in no way related to 

the peers of that name, created by the crown in 

the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. On the other 
hand, his relation has been clearly proved with Thomas 
Cromwell, Earl of Essex, nicknamed Malleus Mona- 
chorum or “ Mauler of Monasteries,’ first heard of 
under Wolsey, after whose fall he rose to be the 
despotic minister of Henry VIII. As the vicar- 
general of a prince who called himself the head of the 
church, this “ mauler” divided the abbey-lands, and 
made many tremendous changes, until he also fell 
a victim to the caprices of the tyrant. His nephew, 
however, Sir Richard Williams, a Welshman and con- 
sequently a countryman of the Tudors, succeeded 
nevertheless in securing the estates of Hinchinbrook 
and Ramsay, in the county of Huntingdon, as his share 
of church property. Out of gratitude to the man 
to whom he owed his wealth, he took the name of 


CROMWELLS EARLY LIFE. 21 


Cromwell, consequently this family, like the Russells, 
Seymours, and Cecils, who were all liberally endowed 
with abbey-lands, must be classed among the gentry 
created by the Tudors. 

Sir Henry, son of Richard, called the “ Golden 
Knight,” and his son Oliver after him, dwelt at 
Hinchinbrook, in the fertile and well-watered eastern 
counties. But, thanks to the extravagance of the age, 
and a numerous family of children, they were unable to 
compete with the rest of the county gentry, and had 
to part with some of their property, and their descen- 
dants were never raised to the peerage like the Cecils 
and many others. 

Robert, Oliver’s brother, took a house in the town 
of Huntingdon, there managed his estates, and, like 
many other landed proprietors, started a brewery with 
great success, a fact which the blinded calumniators of 
his son did not fail to turn into the grossest ridicule. 
Curiously enough, Elizabeth Steward, Robert’s careful 
and pious wife, connected the family with the Scottish 
kings, she being a grand-daughter of the last Prior of 
Ely, who became an Anglican dean, and then entered 
into matrimony. 

The only son of this couple who lived to the age of 
manhood, was the fifth of ten children, and was born 
at Huntingdon on the 25th of April, 1599. At that 
time Elizabeth still occupied the throne, and her 
latest favourite, the young Earl of Essex, had just 
started on that fatal journey to Ireland which com- 
pleted his ruin in the eyes of the Queen, thanks to 
that champion of Irish freedom, Lord Tyrone. 

This boy’s godfather was his uncle Oliver, who 
gave him his name. When, at the zenith of his fame 


22 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


in after years, he was addressing the House of 
Commons in 1654, he was perfectly justified ın the 
assertion: “I was by birth a gentleman, living neither 
in any considerable height nor yet in obscurity.” * 

John Hampden, a Buckinghamshire squire, and the 
St. Johns, also of gentle birth, were his first cousins. 
When the Stuarts came to the throne he was four 
years old, and was present when King James, on his 
journey from the north, was for two days the guest of 
his uncle at Hinchinbrook, who, together with “nother 
uncle of Cromwell’s (on his other sside), was dubbed 
a knight on that occasion. 

The inventions of the first untruthful chronicler 
have defaced even these early recollections. According 
to him, an ape belonging to the royal household ran 
away with the young changeling along the leads 
of Hinchinbrook, and unfortunately did not let him 
drop! He further relates how the uncouth peasant-lad 
picked a quarrel with little Prince Charles, and then 
punched his nose. We are likewise informed how a 
spectre appeared by the child’s bedside, and told him 
that he would one day be king; but in spite of all these 
foolish tales, the real fact has never been quite blotted 
out—that Cromwell’s family was eminently respectable, 
and belonged indeed to the landed gentry. 

His parents, following their religious convictions, 
sent their son to a school at Huntingdon, kept by a 
worthy Puritan minister, Dr. Beard; for in the 
eastern counties more that anywhere else, the stern 
doctrines of Calvin took tremendous hold, both in town 


* “Cromwell's Letters and Speeches.” Carlyle, part viii, 
speech ill. 


CROMWELLS EARLY LIFE, 23 


and country. In due time however, Cromwell, like 
Hampden, Blake, and many more of his great contem- 
poraries, was sent to the University. On the 23rd of 
April, the very day of Shakespeare’s death at Strat- 
ford-on-Avon, his name appears in the matriculation 
examination of Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, 
which was the one chiefly patronized by the principal 
families of his county. This document, much disfigured 
by later additions, is still preserved at the college, 
together with a capital portrait of the Protector, mys- 
teriously presented to the college after the Restoration 
in 1660. 

All the stories of Cromwell’s idleness, immorality, 
and foolishness during his college days, are entirely at 
variance with the real facts. In after years he talked 
Latin as best he could with foreign ambassadors, etc., 
e.g. the Swedish envoy. At the same time Milton, in 
his high-sounding prose, admits that his hand could 
not be wrapped in the feathers of Athene’s bird, who 
was destined to hurl the thunderbolt among the eagles 
encircling the sun. Indeed, Cromwell had no time to 
spend in either study or amusement, for his father died 
as early as June, 1617, and then it fell upon him to 
help his mother and six sisters in the housekeeping. 

This did not prevent his going to London and into 
a lawyer’s office, not with any view to a professional 
career, but because a knowledge of law was simply in- 
dispensable for his judicial duties in the county. He 
has been accused of spending this time of his life in 
gambling and other vicious courses; but surely his 
marriage at the early age of twenty-one, to Khzabeth 
Bourchier, who was imbued with the same strong faith 
as himself, goes far to disprove these accusations. 


24 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


The wedding was on August 22nd, 1620, and their 
union proved a very happy one. Far from wasting 
his patrimony, he continued to support his mother and 
sisters, even after he was married. 

We do not know much about the ensuing years, 
except that several children were born, and that 
Cromwell frequently suffered from acute hypochondria. 
He was a patriot and a Christian, living in a time, 
which had been getting more and more threatening 
since the beginning of Charles’s reign. He struggled 
fiercely with himself in endeavouring to master the 
gloomy doctrines of predestination, and adopted stern 
views regarding the dominion of sin in the world, to 
combat which he considered the duty of every true 
believer. These conclusions, drawn from his own 
life, which had taken him away from his nearest 
relations, finally became with him a firm conviction, 
which nothing could alter. In fact, he underwent 
“regeneration,” as it was called by Puritans, Hugue- 
nots, Cameronians, and numerous other sects at variance 
with the authority of the state, and which indeed is still 
admitted by thousands of Christian souls struggling 
with themselves and the world. It was then that he 
endured those agonies of self-abnegation and deep 
depression, from which men like Cromwell and Luther 
suffer most, but we should guard ourselves against 
putting down their mystic utterances to the mannerism 
of the sect, to ecstaticism, or even hypocrisy. The 
spirit of the Old Testament was asserting itself in a 
sentiment which was not affectation, but the sternest 
realism, which made itself more and more felt in thou- 
sands of hearts in consequence of the slavery, super- 
ficiality, and frivolity both in church and state. 


CROMWELLS EARLY LIFE. 25 


‘Long after Cromwell had made up his mind on 
these points he wrote to his cousin Mrs. St. John: 
“You know what my manner of life hath been. Oh, 
I lived in and loved darkness, and hated light; I was 
a chief, the chief of sinners. This is true: I hated 
godliness, yet God had mercy upon me.”! This is 
from a letter written in October, 1638, and in spite of 
its biblical style, it shows us a man who has for ever 
done with doubt. Anyone who concludes from the 
above that Cromwell led an irregular life in his youth 
can have no idea of what goes on in the mind of such 
aman. Milton bears the most emphatic testimony, 
that during those quiet years, Cromwell was princi- 
pally distinguished by the the purity of his morals. 

The policy of Charles I., however, began to be 
most distasteful to him. His native town elected him 
a member of that monarch’s third antagonistic Parlia- 
ment, in March, 1628, shortly after the neighbouring 
estate of Hinchinbrook had been sold to the Montagues 
by his uncle, to enable the latter to pay his debts. 
Thus it came to pass that he joined the Petition of 
Right at Westminster, and supported the complaints 
against the Catholic tendencies of the clergy and the 
protection of the Jesuits by the court. On February 
11th, 1629, he made his first speech in the Committee 
of Religion. 

He had long been combating the strictly orthodox 
clergy of his county, and advocated “ increased zeal in 
teaching the Bible,’ for the bishops exclusively 
favoured Arminian zealots. It was in this spirit that 
he exclaimed: “ If these are the steps to church pre- 


1 « Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part i., letter ii. 


26 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


ferment, what are we to expect?” He called worthy 
Dr. Beard to testify against one of the worst bishops 
(Neile), but Parliament was dissolved before his evi- 
dence was given. 

Having once come before the public, Cromwell did 
not quite drop into oblivion, even during the eleven 
years of terrorism. Together with his old school- 
master, Dr. Beard, he appears as justice of the peace 
for the borough of Huntingdon. In the spring of 
1631 he sold some of his properties in his native town, 
and rented considerable grazing-lands at St. Ives, 
about five miles down the Ouse; but even then, the 
one idea of his life was to foster the opposition which 
had already begun to spread from Westminster into 
every shire and hundred. 

In 1636, he succeeded to his uncle’s farming of the 
tithes, and shortly afterwards moved to Ely, where he 
could manage his estates to greater advantage. There 
he took part in one of those petty feuds, which 
were every-day occurrences with a government which 
must needs interfere with everything. The one burn- 
ing question of the neighbourhood had, for some time 
past, been the drainage of the fens (which extend along 
the coast through five counties), and, by means of the 
Bedford Level, to carry the Ouse river direct to the 
sea. The landed proprietors, especially the richly- 
endowed house of Bedford, had made various fruitless 
efforts in this direction, when, in 1637, the arbitrary 
government came down upon them, and tyrannized 
over the association of well-to-do landowners and small 
farmers, which already stood in bad repute for inde- 
pendent opinions. Then Cromwell was the first to 
stand up in the defence of individual liberty. Although 


CROMWELLS EARLY LIFE. 97 


anything but opposed to the drainage of the fens, he 
would not endure the Commission of Dykes being 
interfered with on its own ground. 

So, on the one hand, the oppression of the state in 
matters civil, agricultural, and ecclesiastical, was fast be- 
coming unbearable; but, on the other hand, there is no 
denying that the very essence of Puritanism consisted 
in opposing the government in everything, not ex- 
cepting the refined and intellectual spirit which 
characterized the Anglican monarchy. No wonder 
that even strong minds were seized with despair. It 
is indeed difficult to credit the report that, after the 
storm had burst in Scotland and the King’s means 
were entirely exhausted, Cromwell, Pym, and Hamp- 
den should have seriously contemplated emigration, 
from sheer disgust at the existing impositions. On 
the contrary, Cromwell even took a fresh lease of his 
farm for twenty-one years. 

Probably in consequence of his agitation about the 
fens, the borough of Cambridge elected him a member 
for the opposition in the short-lived Parliament of 
April, 1640, while the University sent a Royalist. 
But they were both sent back again soon enough, for 
though the hard-pressed King had at first appeared to 
yield, he determined to make one more effort to obtain 
what he wanted by “ other methods.” We know 
how thoroughly the Scots got the better of his 
Majesty, and how he was forced to summon another 
Parliament in the autumn. And Oliver Cromwell 
once more returned to Westminster with a large 


majority of supporters. 


CHAPTER IV. 


KING AND PARLIAMENT. 


CHARLES’S ENDEAVOURS TO RAISE AN ARMY TO FIGHT THE 
SCOTS.—DEMANDS FOR RELIGIOUS UNIFORMITY.— 
STRAFFORD AND LAUD SENT TO THE TOWER.—TRIAL 
AND EXECUTION OF STRAFFORD.—-IRISH MASSACRE, — 
GRAND PETITION AND REMONSTRANCE OF THE COM- 
MONS.—ROUNDHEADS AND . CAVALIERS.—CROMWELL 
MOVES THAT POWER OF MILITIA BE GRANTED TO 


PARLIAMENT, — NEWBURY. — BRISTOL. — °“ SOLEMN 
LEAGUE AND COVENANT.’’—EASTERN ASSOCIATION.— 
LOWESTOFT. 


HE King required both men and money to send 

the Scots out of the country. The majority of 

the people of England shared the political and religious 

opinions of their northern cousins, and were much 

more inclined to join hands with them, especially as 

the English boasted many well-known men who had 
fought and suffered for their convictions. 

In the meantime, Lord Strafford was still recruiting 
among the pugnacious Irish, hoping to raise a sufficient 
force to attack the northern foe as well as the insur- 
gents in England. But fate was against him and 
Laud from the first. In the very beginning the 


KING AND PARLIAMENT. 29 


passionate petitions for the reform of the Established 
Church clashed with the demands of the Scotch com- 
missioners, the most important of which was their 
desire of uniformity. 

While Parliament was inquiring into the deeds of 
violence perpetrated against its supporters, John Pym, 
in his fiery zeal, made the best of his opportunities 
during the first sessions, endeavouring both to identify 
the cause of Scotland with that of the Parliament, and 
to bring the relations with Ireland for decision before 
the Commons. 

We next hear of Strafford and Laud being im- 
prisoned in the Tower, while two of their accomplices 
fled across the sea, but only just in time. The fall of 
its chief supporters brought about the collapse of the 
system, and a frightful Nemesis overtook the rotten 
administration of the Stuarts in church and state, and 
their terrible abuse of judicial authority. The debates 
about the great petition, with its 15,000 signatures, 
were followed by the trial of Strafford, who went 
bravely to his death, miserably deserted by his king, 
who flattered himself that he would get on better with 
inferior but more pliable tools. 

Cromwell, who had not the gift of eloquence, like 
Pym and others, did not take much part in these 
events. But it was at this time that he attracted the 
attention of Sir Philip Warwick, by his spirited protest. 
against the whipping of young John Lilburne for his 
incendiary writings. In a committee, his uncouth 
rudeness to Lord Mandeville, the political opinions of 
whose family (the Montagues) were still undecided, 
caused the chairman to threaten to adjourn the 


meeting. 


30 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Meanwhile, Charles, who had only momentarily 
conceded to the opposition, and was engaged in fresh 
plots with high-born officers, had promised the Par- 
liament that it should not be dissolved without its 
own consent. During the recess he went north to 
negotiate with Scotland, and on October 23rd, 1641, 
the Catholics in the north and east of Ireland (some 
of them of English origin) perpetrated a most fright- 
ful massacre of Protestants. Personally the King was 
blameless for this deed of blood, but of course he 
favoured the Catholics in Ireland as he did every- 
where else, and though they might trust an absolute 
monarchy, they could not possibly have any confidence 
in a puritanical and parliamentary government. This 
was the first sign of resistance against the union of 
England and Scotland, which; it was hoped, would 
effectually put a stop to the existing license. In 
England, however, it had just the contrary effect. 
The Great Petition and Remonstrance of Novem- 
ber 22nd was a direct appeal to the people, and 
consisted of 206 articles, protesting against the in- 
fraction of civil and religious liberty during the last 
fifteen years. It took part against the bishops, and 
urged for a limitation of the Royal Prerogative. The 
Remonstrance was passed by a small majority, for men 
like Edward Hydeand Lord Falkland could not silence 
their loyal consciences, and sided with the King. 

The Star Chamber and that most powerful insti- 
tution of the church, the High Commission Court, 
were overthrown. A howling mob prevented the 
bishops from attending the House of Lords, even 
before they were excluded from it by an independent 
resolution of the Parliament. ‘The fight began be- 


KING AND PARLIAMENT. ol 


tween Cavaliers and Roundheads. The King was 
denied the only right which had hitherto belonged 
exclusively to the crown, namely, the “ Power of 
Militia ;” for the Parliament, as represented by two- 
thirds of the Commons, wished to usurp even this 
royal privilege, using indeed the King’s name, but 
only for the good of the country. 

So there stood the self-willed King, supported by 
those of his vassals bound to him by the oath of 
allegiance, and confronted by the opposition, embrac- 
ing about two-thirds of his people, who stood up for 
King and Parliament. Then the blaze was kindled, 
and was not extinguished again. 

Cromwell, who during the summer recess had been 
looking after his estates at Ely, now came to the point. 
It was he who moved that the captains of the volunteers 
should be appointed by the Parliament instead of by 
the King, and insisted on the dismissal of Lord Bristol 
from the King’s council. He thereby drove the 
monarch to the fatal but decisive step of January 4th, 
1642; for the five members, which Charles and his 
armed officers came to seek in the House of Commons, 
had strongly supported this radical reform in the 
militia. | 

The King having thus attacked the liberty of the 
people, the metropolis assumed the most determined 
attitude, and when a few days later he left Whitehall 
for the north, only to return on the day of his death, 
both parties began to think of exchanging sharp 
speeches for still sharper weapons. 

When matters took this turn, Cromwell, the man of 
deeds rather than of words, started on his appointed 
path. Like many other members of parliament, he 


32 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


had hurried home, so that the King’s ““ Commission. of 
Array” might not get the better of the Parliament’s 
“ Ordinance for the Militia.” He subscribed £500, 
and his cousin £1000 to quell the Papist rebellion in 

Ireland. He also sent arms to the town of Cambridge, 
placed a guard round the magazine in the Castle, and 
took possession of the plate, which some of the colleges, 
following Oxford’s example, wanted to secure for the 
King. With the assistance of his brothers-in-law 
Walton and Desborough, he at once set to work 
organizing an army for the service of the Parliament, 
In the “ Army List under the Command of the Earl of 
Essex,” we find “ Oliver Cromwell” captain in troop 
siaty-seven, and in troop eight of Earl Bedford’s Horse 
his eldest son 1s mentioned as a cornet. 

Similar zeal reigned in many shires and hundreds, 
parishes and offices, but nowhere to such an extent as 
in the eastern counties. Elsewhere, loyalty to the 
King prevailed, and that not merely in aristocratic 
circles. In many districts Charles had got a start by 
his “ Commission of Array,” so he confidently hoisted 
his royal standard at Nottingham Castle, as a sign that 
if war were declared, this should be the only legitimate 
rallying point. On October 25rd the two parties tried 
their strength at Edgehill, but it seemed as though 
they had not yet forgotten the bond of nationality. 
The fiction of the “ King and Parliament” fighting 
the “ Kine’s Person,” was much nearer the mark than 
the assertion that Puritans and Royalists had come to 
blows. 

In spite of the ready self-sacrifice of the popular 
party, which was reinforced by several high-born 
families, the Parliamentary army, consisting as it did 


KING AND PARLIAMENT. 33 


of the town-bred militia of the Earl of Essex (himself 
anything but a strategist), was not eminently success- 
ful, and at the most succeeded in retreating unmolested, 
as at Newbury in 1643. Bristol was taken by the 
Royalists. Indeed they would have taken London— 
and their cavalry did make one or two raids into the 
suburbs—had not Charles delayed unduly over the 
siege of Gloucester. The Cavaliers, although wanting 
in discipline, were courageous, and full of fiery en- 
thusiasm for their royal master, for whom they fought 
right joyfully. The undaunted Queen had imported 
arms, ammunition, and other war supplies from the 
continent. The King’s nephews, especially Prince 
Rupert, a brave and impetuous soldier, brought much 
experience from the German war. It is well-known, 
that though the country was ringing with the clash of 
arms in the North, West, and South, yet the cry for 
peace was ever making itself heard. 

Negotiations were begun on several occasions, but 
ever fainter grew the hope of reconciling the disputed 
principles of both parties—the Royal Prerogative and 
the Parliamentary Privileges. On the contrary, the 
split between the armies at Westminster and Oxford 
kept getting wider. Everything depended on which 
side could bear the strain longest, and was best able 
to defray the costs. 

Alarmed by the King’s undoubted successes, the 
General Assembly of Scotland joined hands with the 
Parliament at Westminster. Having suppressed the 
Episcopacy, the South adopted the Presbyterian reform, 
and in return for this concession, the North offered its 
well-trained army. 

On September 25th, 1643, the “Solemn Leagae 

D 


34 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


and Covenant,” which was so important in the defence 
of religious liberty and the rights of the people, as well 
as in the extermination of idolatry, was formally read 
and signed at Westminster. John Pym, a sharp- 
sighted statesman, and the ‘“ servants of the Word,” 
thought to subdue the two kingdoms by an ecclesias- 
tical and political system, headed by a king with 
limited privileges. But how far did this help the 
defence of Parliamentary England, instituted by the 
Earl of Essex ? 

The eastern districts, those well-watered plains 
between the mouths of the Thames and Humber, 
were but little affected by these events, thanks prin- 
cipally to the energetic activity of the member for 
Cambridge. He transformed the Commission of 
Dykes for the five counties into a strong political 
association, and eventually suppressed all the re- 
bellious elements in the district, At the beginning 
of the war, the nobility here, as elsewhere, consisted 
principally of Royalists, but the majority of the popu- 
lation, the numerous freeholders, did not share their 
opinions. ‘They were people who could do more than 
merely make money by their grazing-lands and fat cattle, 
and in their simple faith had formed their own opinions 
on subjects which had disturbed all minds for years. 
Advanced Separatism had struck deep roots in all the 
eastern counties, and calmly went its way, regardless 
alike of the Scotch church and Parliamentary monarchy. 
No wonder they looked up to Cromwell with the utmost 
confidence, for he had long settled these points in his 
own mind. He never rested until he had procured the 
necessary sums, drilled the first troops, both cavalry 
and infantry, and fortified and garrisoned Cambridge 


KING AND PARLIAMENT. 35 


as the centre of the Opposition. In the spring he was 
mado a colonel, and not only repulsed all the attacks 
of the Cavaliers, but soon brought the native gentry 
to their senses, either by persuasion or violence. 

His old uncle, the head of the family, who was also 
his godfather, was still alive, and as was to be expected 
had remained loyal to the King. One day Cromwell 
appeared at his house at Ramsay, dutifully paid him 
his respects, asked for his blessing, and then carried 
off all he could lay hands on in the way of arms and 
plate. 

When the High Sheriff of Hertford ventured to 
execute the King’s “ Commission of Array” one 
market day at St. Albans, he was arrested in the 
middle of it by Cromwell’s dragoons. 

In March, 1643, Sir John Wentworth and numerous 
other Cavaliers tried to make Lowestoft, on the coast 
of Suffolk, the centre of a Royalist association. They 
had fortified the town and even set up a few guns, but 
Cromwell, with five companies of horse, and tho volun- 
teers from Norwich and Yarmouth, came upon them 
unawares, and only gave them their liberty on payment 
of exorbitant sureties. 


CHAPTER V. 


CIVIL WAR. 


ADVANCE OF THE PARLIAMENTARIANS TO LYNN, PETER- 
BOROUGH, AND LINCOLN.—BATTLE OF GRANTHAM.— 
STAMFORD AND BURLEIGH HOUSE TAKEN.—-GAINS- 
BOROUGH. — CROMWELL’S ‘* LISTING.’? — CONTRAST 
BETWEEN HIS OWN AND THE MANCHESTER REGIMENTS, 
—THE ‘* IRONSIDES.”—-WINCEBY FIGHT.—* As- 
SEMBLY OF DIVINES.”—MARSTON MOOR.—-DEBATES 
IN PARLIAMENT.—CROMWELL’S QUARREL WITH MAN- 
CHESTER. — ““ SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE.” — THE 
“NEW MODEL.”—-CROMWELL STILL LIEUTENANT- 
GENERAL. —-NASEBY. 


HANKS to Cromwell’s reckless energy, which 
had to be indemnified by the Parliament, the 
districts lying between the Ouse river and the coast, 
and later, Huntingdon and Lincoln, were spared 
almost all the horrors of civil war, inasmuch as here 
two equal and opposite factions neutralized one another, 
which was not the case in many parts of England. 
Among the gentlemen mentioned in the lists of the 
seven Associated Counties, we find three lords, thirty 
baronets, and forty-two knights. It is hardly probable 
that they all gave their services very willingly, but 


CIVIL WAR. 37 


they could not well refuse to help in maintaining the 
strict discipline which rose up around them. The 
Parliamentary army was soon strong enough to ad- 
vance further, and presently drove Lord Camden’s 
forces out of Crowland towards Lynnand Peterborough, 
and finally into Lincolnshire, where the troops of the 
Marquis of Newcastle had arrived from the North. 

On May 13th Cromwell boldly attacked a far su- 
perior force of horsemen and dragoons near Grantham, 
and, as he says in the first of his dispatches published 
in the newspapers, the enemy was “ by God’s Provi- 
dence immediately routed.” But, nevertheless, he 
insisted on summary reinforcements, because now was 
felt the necessity of co-operating with Sir Thomas 
Fairfax, who was fighting for the Parliament against 
the Marquis of Newcastle in Yorkshire. 

When Cromwell had taken Stamford and Burleigh 
House in June, it was necessary to relieve hard-pressed 
Gainsborough, and drive the enemy back over the 
Trent. On the 28th he engaged in several sharp 
skirmishes, ordering his tightly-closed columns to rush 
upon the enemy’s troops wherever they found them, 
scattering them with pistols and swords in a hand-to- 
hand fight. In a letter to the Committee of the Asso- 
ciation at Cambridge, he says: “ And truly God 
follows us with encouragement, who is the God of 
blessings: and I beseech you let Him not lose His 
blessings upon us. ..... There is nothing to be 
feared but our ownsin and sloth..... If somewhat 
be not done in this, you will see Newcastle’s army 
march up into your bowels.” ' 


1 « Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part ii., letter xu. 


38 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


This action, where Lord Cavendish, a nephew of 
Newcastle’s, met his death, did not however save 
Gainsborough, and the Royal cause flared up once 
more all over England. But as soon as the harvest 
was over, Cromwell, whom the Parliament had voted 
Governor of the Isle of Ely,in the heart of the un- 
assailable Fenland, worked harder than ever to raise 
fresh troops on a new and reformed system. Curiously 
enough, Lord Mandeville, now Earl of Manches- 
ter, formerly the Parliament’s bitter enemy, but 
now its ardent supporter, received the command of 
the Eastern Association. Among the four colonels of 
horse under him, not one had listed such a body as 
Cromwell. 

There is nothing more wonderful than the way in 
which this man of forty-four acquired the art of war, 
his life up till then having lain in such very different 
paths. He and his men had to practise cavalry exer- 
cises, from the simplest passes to the most difficult 
manceuvres, while Dutch greybeards had to act as drill- 
sergeants. The few stringent regulations on which 
rested this powerful organization were due to the 
pressure of the need itself. No other eye could pick 
out officers and men with such unerring judgment, 
He once remarked: “ If you choose honest, godly men 
to be captains of horse, honest men will follow them; 
and they will be careful to mount such.”' He pre- 
ferred quality to quantity, and aimed at that perfect 
uniformity which overthrows every enemy, however 
strong. ‘I had rather have a plain russet-coated 
captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what 


* “ Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part ii., letter xvi. 


CIVIL WAR. 89 


he knows, than that which you call a “ gentleman ” 
and is nothing else.” * In the Eastern Counties more 
than anywhere else, the small freeholders and well-to- 
do farmers possessed an extremely independent spirit. 
These hardened fellows, grown up among their horses, 
and all imbued with the same fiery sectarian spirit, 
composed Cromwell’s columns. Such men as these 
could manage to keep both themselves and their 
beasts, in spite of the difficulty in securing regular 
pay. Their military training was backed up by the 
uniform discipline of their religion. So the sense of 
duty was maintained by men who not only understood 
how to groom a horse and burnish armour, but could 
win a battle in the name of the Lord; and the spirit 
among them was quite equal to those principles of 
knightly honour which had hitherto given the 
Cavaliers under Prince Rupert such an undeniable 
advantage. 

No wonder that Cromwell was not equally satisfied 
with the Manchester regiments. In writing to his 
cousin, Oliver St. John, on September 11th, he de- 
scribes them as “bad and mutinous, and not to be con- 
fided in.” “My troops increase,” he remarks in the 
same letter; “I have a lovely company; you would 
respect them did you know them. They are no 
‘ Anabaptists;’ they are honest, sober Christians— 
they expect to be used as men!” Because Cromwell 
would not allow men to drink, swear, and plunder, and 
tried to make the fear of God take the place of honour, 
and inculcated the most stringent discipline, he was 
jeered at, instead of being respected as he deserved. 


1 « Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part ii., letter xvi. 


40 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


He expressed his opinion as to the root of the evil in 
Essex’s army, when speaking to his cousin, John 
Hampden, shortly before that pattern of true pa- 
triotism fell at Chalgrove, in June, 1645. “ Your 
troops,” said Cromwell, “are most of them old de- 
cayed serving-men and tapsters, and such kind of 
fellows; and their troops (v.e. Cavaliers) are gentle- 
men’s sons, younger sons, and persons of quality: do 
you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows 
will be ever able to encounter gentlemen, that have 
honour and courage and resolution in them? You 
must get men of a spirit; and take it not ill what I 
say,—l know you will not,—of a spirit that is likely 
to go on as far as gentlemen will go :—or else you will 
be beaten still.’’? 

Even his best friends regarded him as an aimless 
enthusiast, until, with the impetus of religious-political 
fanaticism, he threw himself on the enemy, singing 
psalms, and invoking the name of the Most High, and 
thus settled the question for ever. With justifiable 
pride, he adds: “ The result was—impute it to what 
you please—I raised such men as had the fear of God 
before them, as made some conscience of what they 
did, and from that day forward, I must say to you, 
they were never beaten, and wherever they were en- 
gaged against the enemy, they beat continually.” *® 
Indeed, Cromwell’s “ Ironsides” formed an armed 
phalanx, whose object was religious liberty and social 
equality, and who, in spite of their sectarian indepen- 
dence, put up with the severest discipline. They are 
an unparalleled example in history of moral enthu- 


' “Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part x., speech xi. 
2 - 
Ibid. 


CIFTL WAR. 41 


siasm combined with common sense. From the very 
beginning these men were not only the sworn enemies 
of the Royalists, but also remained perfectly indifferent 
to the constitutional laws of the Covenant. 

It was natural enough that the Parliamentary 
party should not regard their support as an unmixed 
blessing, for the irresistible force of Cromwell’s 
“ Tronsides ”” was sure to attract all the Separatist 
elements in the country. What Milton said later of 
the great leader and his followers is applicable to them 
from the first. From being able to control himself, 
he learned to govern others, and so developed his gifts 
as acommander. ‘When the sword was drawn, he 
offered his services, and was appointed to a troop of 
horse, whose numbers were increased by the pious and 
the good, who flocked from all quarters to his standard, 
and in a short time he almost surpassed the greatest 
generals in the magnitude and intrepidity of his 
achievements.” * 

But there was hardly time for any quiet prepara- 
tions. In the autumn, after Fairfax’s victories south 
of the Humber, every nerve had to be strained in at- 
tacking the superior force of the Marquis of Newcastle, 
who besieged Hull on October 11th. That very day 
his troops were surprised and defeated at Winceby 
within half-an-hour, by the united army of the Asso- 
ciation, strengthened by reinforcements from York. 
Cromwell lay for a moment under his dead charger, 
and narrowly escaped being stabbed by Sir Ingram 
Hopton, but succeeded in mounting a retainer’s horse 


1 Milton’s “Second Defense of the People of England,” Bohn’s 
edition of “ Milton’s Prose Works,” vol. 1., p. 285. 


49 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


unhurt, while his adversary remained dead upon the 
field. Lincolnshire being so thoroughly scoured of 
the enemy was a great advance towards the North, and 
Cromwell appeared at various places before the in- 
vasion of the Scots in the following year brought 
matters to a crisis at York. 

In accordance with the “ Assembly of Divines” at 
Westminster, he one day entered Ely Cathedral with 
his soldiers, and dismissed a minister in the middle of 
his hturgy. In February, 1644, he was made Lieu- 
tenant-General to the Duke of Manchester, and during 
a short visit to London he received orders to convey 
ammunition to Gloucester. About the beginning of 
March he returned to Cambridge with numerous 
prisoners. But an Independent, who picked his best 
officers from the most extreme Dissenters, and declared 
that the state had no business to interfere with the 
private opinions of its servants, could not fail to 
attract the attention of both comrades and superiors. 

But events themselves were to pave the way for 
these sweeping tendencies, and that before even the 
first act of the great struggle was over. Amongst 
the spirited leaders of the Opposition, Hampden had 
fallen and Pym died, and both were buried at West- 
minster, Lord Essex and his high-born officers were 
distinguished neither by talents nor victories, and 
several other Lords, who had hitherto stood up for the 
country’s rights, did not know what to make of 
matters. Cromwell, to whom were due the only 
successes of those dreary days, namely, the clearance 
in the Eastern Counties, and the fall of Gloucester in 
the West, was dragged on by the force of circum- 
stances, unable to help himself, indeed his importance 


x CIFTIZ WAR, 43 


increased step by step, until at last the final decision 
rested with him. 

A battle was fought in June, 1644, when the 
Marquis of Newcastle and his Papists were driven into 
York by the Scots under Lord Leven, assisted by 
Fairfax, Manchester, and Cromwell, while Prince 
Rupert had crossed the Peaks from Lancashire with 
20,000 men,and come to the assistance of the Royalists, 
who sustained a terrible defeat on July 2nd, at Mar- 
ston Moor, not far from York ;—the bloodiest fight of 
the whole war. 

Without detracting in any way from the merits of 
the Scots, who fought with incomparable coolness, or 
from the admirable military tactics of Fairfax, still the 
decisive blow to the élite of Rupert’s horse was un- 
deniably dealt by the left wing, i.e. Cromwell’s 
Tronsides. His brother-in-law, Walton, lost his son 
at York, and Cromwell, himself mourning the death of 
his firstborn, wrote to apprise him of this fact; a 
curious and interesting letter, in which even the 
quotations from scripture are outweighted by the 
strong and forcible expressions of the writer: ‘ Truly 
England and the church of God,” he says, ‘‘ hath had 
a great favour from the Lord, in this great victory 
given unto us, such as the like never was since this 
war began. .... We never charged but we routed 
the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, 
being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, 
beat all the Prince’s horse. God made them as stubble 
to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot 
with our horse and routed all we charged.”*: 


1 “ Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part ii., letter xxi. 


44 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


This fell blow soon cleared the North, but by no 
means brought the King to his knees, for two months 
later the Parliamentary army came to grief far away 
in the South-West, in Devonshire and Cornwall. On 
October 27th Charles himself had a narrow escape at 
the second battle of Newbury, where his enemies were 
assisted by the heroes of the Association. Then 
followed that gloomy time, when the committee for 
both kingdoms met in London, where the “ Assembly 
of Divines” was still sitting at Westminster, and 
when the Liberal and Conservative parties once more 
tried to unite by entering into negotiations with the 
King at Uxbridge. 

Then ensued loud and angry debates in Parliament. 
The Scotch ministers, with their abrupt demands and 
domineering ways, gave offence all round. They 
thought to mould the English state according to their 
own ideas, by giving it a puppet for its king, depen- 
dent on an Ecclesiastical and National Assembly. The 
Dissenters, however, though in the minority in. the 
“ Assembly of Divines,” had taken firmer hold than 
ever in the army and among the people, and were 
indeed the last to approve of the dethroned Hpiscopacy 
being replaced by a still more gloomy and intolerant 
hierarchy, while they relished quite as little the idea 
of that Aristocratic-Presbyterian form of government, 
which kept all districts north of the Tweed in a per- 
petual ferment. The victor of Marston Moor placed 
himself at the head of this faction, when he returned 
to his place in the Commons in November. He 
possessed a national as well as an independent spirit, 
and would neither acknowledge the Scots as his 
masters, nor put up with incapable Lords for generals. 


CIVIL WAR. 45 


He attacked the latter by tripping up his superior 
officer the Earl of Manchester, a well-known leader of 
the Presbyterians. Their relations had never been of 
the most friendly kind, and were not improved by a 
report, spread by Crawford, a Scotch officer, that 
Cromwell was acoward. The charge brought by the 
latter against Manchester in the House was, that since 
the taking of York he had never shown good will 
to end the war vigorously, and had even refused to 
pursue the King at Newbury, whom, had he done so, 
he must have captured. Thereupon the Earl accused 
Cromwell of insubordination, and several spiteful 
voices were raised against him who had dared to make 
the high-born generals (Essex included) responsible 
for the way in which matters had been conducted up 
till then. He is reported to have said that “there 
would never be a good time in England till we had 
done with the lords ;” and on another occasion, that 
“if he met the King in battle, he would fire his pistol 
at the King as at another.” 

Cromwell and his brave “ Ironsides,” and all other 
pious zealots, had either to submit to their incapable 
commanders, or else to fight for their own indepen- 
dence and replace them by something better. Indeed, 
self-preservation required it, for Cromwell foresaw that 
the Scots Commissioners would endeavour to prose- 
cute him as an “incendiary.” On the other hand, 
he looked for considerable support in the Commons, 
where similar discontent was making itself felt. It 
was then that his ingenious brain evolved the “ Self- 
denying Ordinance,” whereby no member of parlıa- 
ment was allowed to hold any public post, either civil 
or military. True, he caused the “ Ordinance” to be 


46 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


moved by someone else (Mr. Zouch Tate, member for 
Northampton), but on December 9th he thus ex- 
pressed himself before both Houses: “I know the 
worth of those Commanders, Members of both Houses 
who are yet in power, but if I speak my conscience 
without reflection upon any, I do conceive if the Army 
be not put into another method, and the War more 
vigorously prosecuted, the People can bear the War 
no longer, and will enforce you to a dishonourable 
peace.” He pledged his word that the troops, espe- 
cially his own, would not resent the loss of so many 
officers. By calling ıt a matter of conscience, and 
emancipation from all self-interest, he fascinated some, 
and dazzled others. The strenuous opposition of the 
Lords succumbed to the Commons, who passed a Bill 
for the entire reconstruction of the army, in a purely 
independent spirit. The officers only, and not the 
men, were to be bound by the Covenant. Essex, Man- 
chester, and the rest retired honourably, but Fairfax 
was appointed Lord-General, with the option of 
choosing his own officers, though indeed he was more 
conspicuous by his handsome martial figure tl an by 
the intellect which was requisite for such a post. The 
troops were formed into reriments, always ready for 
action, which were called the New Model Army ; and 
Cromwell’s energetic and vital force was found so in- 
dispensable, that in the end he alone was exempt from 
his own reconstructed regulations. And yet he cannot 
be accused of deliberate premeditation. His only 
object was the formation of a standing army, and to 
render it equal to the emergencies of the time. True, 
it led to his entire command of the situation, but this 
was mainly due to the fact that the Sectarian and 


‘CIVIL WAR. 47 


Anti-Presbyterian party made more way than the 
adherents of the Covenant, who had never quite given 
up the idea of a reconciliation with the King. 

Towards the end of April the Committee of both 
Kingdoms again sent Cromwell into the West to dis- 
perse the united troops of Charles and Prince Rupert. 
The latter had just taken Leicester by storm, and was 
ralsing fresh troops to reinforce the Royalist army 
marching from Windsor towards Oxford. Fairfax and 
his officers chose this moment to petition Parliament 
that Cromwell might be dispensed of the Self-denying 
Ordinance, as they none of them could do without 
him. So he remained Lieutenant-General, and was the 
soul ofeverything. InJune he was received with loud 
acclamation, and joined the Cambridge Committee in 
the opposition against the King. 

On Saturday, April 14th, Charles attacked the 
Model Army at Naseby, where Prince Rupert’s fiery 
impetus bore down the left wing in his first splendid 
charge. But while his men stopped to plunder, Crom- 
well carried all before him on the right, and after a 
three hours’ fight overcame the infantry in the centre, 
and finally succeeded in also dispersing the cavalry. 
The Royalists lost 5,000 men, their guns and baggage- 
waggons, amongst which was Charles’s own carriage 
containing hisdispatches. The publication of the King’s 
correspondence gave the Parliament a tremendous hold 
over him, for it proved how hopelessly his Majesty 
had broken faith in the late negotiations, and how 
little could be expected from his future promises. 
That very evening Cromwell wrote a short account to 
Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons, to which 
are added these mysterious words, full of deep mean- 


= 


48 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


ing: “ He that ventures his life for the liberty of his 
country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his 
conscience, and you the liberty he fights for.” ! 

The power of Charles had received a severe blow, 
and the victor of Naseby was already the most powerful 
man in the country. Thearmy, created by him, could 
now spare him less than ever, and this fact: alone 
gave the member for Cambridge a weighty influence 
at Westmiuster. 


“Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part ii., letter xxix. 


CHAPTER VI. 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 


THE CLUBMEN.—FALL OF BRISTOL.—-BRIDGWATER.—-WIN- 
CHESTER.—-BASING HOUSE.—DEFEAT OF THE KING AT 
CHESTER AND OF MONTROSE AT SELKIRK.— SURRENDER 
OF EXETER.,—OXFORD CAPITULATES.—STATE OF THE 
COUNTRY. —-CHARLES TAKES REFUGE WITH THE SCOTS. 
—-THEIR TREATMENT OF HIM.—ARMY MANIFESTO.— 
STATE OF IRELAND.—-RESOLUTION TO SEND AN ARMY 
OVER TO PUNISH THE REBELS.—MEETING OF TROOPS 
ON ROYSTON HEATH.—RIOTING IN LONDON.—MEETING 
AT HOUNSLOW.——ESCAPE OF THE KING FROM HAMPTON 
COURT.—HIS IMPRISONMENT AT CARISBROOKE.——-SIEGE 
OF PEMBROKE.—PRESTON.——CAPITULATION OF COLCHES- 
TER.—CROMWELL AT EDINBURGH.—-NEGOTIATIONS AT 
NEWPORT. 


HE first thing to be done was to pursue the 
retreating enemy, and uproot the Royalists in 
the loyal West. Even there, Charles’s obstinacy 
and insincerity had awakened a desire for reconcilia- 
tion with the more moderate party. The peasants, 
assembled under the name of ““ clubmen,” had armed 
themselves with bludgeons, or any weapons they could 
lay hands on, for the purpose of defending themselves 
E 


50 OLIVER CROMWETE. 


a 


against the disturbances of both parties. In August 
Cromwell dispersed a horde of these fellows at Shaftes- 
bury, and took the strongholds of the enemy one 
after the other. On September 10th Prince Rupert 
was at length forced to surrender Bristol, to the in- 
tense indignation of his uncle the King. Cromwell, 
in his account to Lenthall, again gives all honour to 
the Lord and the prayers of the faithful. “ Presby- 
terians, Independents, all have here the same spirit of 
faith and prayer ; the same presence and answer, they 
agree here, have no names of difference; pity it is it 
should be otherwise anywhere.” ! 

In the meantime he sharply attacked the Royalists 
under Lord Goring at Langport and Torrington, took 
Bridgwater, and, on the 28th, conquered Winchester, 
where a few days later the castle itself capitulated. 
At the request of the people of London he successfully 
stormed the impregnable stronghold of Basing House 
(October19th), which had hitherto rendered the western 
roads almost impassable. The owner, the Marquis of 
Winchester, and other nobles fell into his hands, 
together with a quantity of valuables, etc. Having 
accomplished this, he started off to assist Lord Fairfax 
in Devonshire. Between them they made a distinct 
clearance there during the winter; while an attempt of 
the King’s to take Chester came to grief most utterly, 
and the Marquis of Montrose, who had raised the 
Stuart standard in Scotland, was terribly defeated at 
Selkirk. 

Sir Ralph Hopton’s troops laid down their arms 
when they surrendered Exeter in 1646. Colonel 


1 “ Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part ii, letter xxxi. 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 51 


Dalbier, who had once taught Cromwell the elements 
of warfare, overthrew strong Castle Dennington, near 
Newbury, another of London’s eyesores. About this 
time Fairfax at length advanced towards Oxford, so 
long the King’s loyal and orthodox gathering-place. 
When this city capitulated, the fierce blaze of civil war 
sank down into a glowing ember. 

What a picture of ruin the devastated country pre- 
sented! After Laud had been beheaded in January, 
1645, the Anglican liturgy was prohibited, and the 
loyal Anglican clergy ousted from their livings; in 
fact, Presbyterianism, united with Scotland, reigned 
supreme. By the defeat of their party, the Royalist 
nobles incurred heavy fines, or else exile and entire 
loss of their property. In consequence of tremendous 
confiscations, a great number of estates changed hands. 

The King’s systematic faithlessness was principally 
to blame, when every effort to unite Crown and Cove- 
nant failed utterly. In his unprincipled obstinacy, he 
was equally insincere towards loyal servants and 
moderate opponents, and always considered himself 
justified in going back from his word. Truly, had 
Charles I. been victor, he would have ruined both his 
friends and his enemies. But the most extraordinary 
part of it all was, that he himself never relinquished his 
most sanguine hopes, even when in sorest need, and 
boldly appealed to those who had repulsed him over 
and over again. On the 27th of April he rode dis- 
guised out of Oxford, two months before that city 
opened its gates to the Parliament, and surrendered 
himself to the Scots at Newark, preferring the mercy 
of his own countrymen to that of the hard-headed de- 


fenders of the people’s rights. 


Cr 
bo 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


This desperate step was quite calculated to inflame 
the international feud still more, and to drive matters 
to a crisis between the two parties. It was hoped 
that French influence would help to reconcile the King 
with the more moderate opinions represented both in 
England and Scotland, and so destroy the power of 
the Independents, who were equally dangerous to both 


parties, for the army was already on their side, and 


they liked the idea of a free state. Being mostly of 
English birth, they disliked the intolerant dominion of 
the Scotch Covenant quite as much as the aristocratic 
exclusiveness of the Anglicans; but when the King’s 
residence in the Scotch camp was converted into the 
strictest imprisonment, he felt equally bitter against 
Presbyterian intolerance. No wonder he again sided 
with the Independents, only it was not to be expected 
that he would ever treat them more honestly than 
other people. His own words testify that he only 
wanted to inflame both parties to their mutual destruc- 
tion. But while he thought to ensure his safety by 
religious concessions, he only straitened his position 
still more. Naturally, the Parliament at Westminster 
did not relish his being in the power of the Scotch 
troops. 

After lengthy transactions, during which Cromwell 
was in London, carefully observing everything, it was 
agreed that England should pay her allies the arrears 
of the army expenses and £4,000,000. As soon as 
the first instalments were paid, the Scots turned their 
faces homewards, and meanly delivered up their royal 
prisoner to the Parliamentarians, who imprisoned him 


at Holmby, in Northamptonshire, under even stricter 
surveillance than before. 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 53 


The idea was, to force him to confirm the Presby- 
terian government, and then, under a limited monarchy, 
to obtain the object of the religious union between 
North and South, namely, the destruction of the Inde- 
pendent party. The only reason of the Scotch troops 
marching home, after receiving their first instalment 
from the City of London, was, that they might be fully 
equal to the army created by Cromwell. 

_ But after the New Year, the strain became still 
greater. It was urged, that keeping up such a large 
army after the conclusion of the war was a frightful 
tax, and was indeed dangerous to civil liberty; and 
these complaints were intensified by the fact, that 
most of the soldiers had not taken the Covenant. In 
consequence of the “ Assembly of Divines”’ at West- 
minster, London had become so decidedly Presbyterian, 
that when the 10th of March was fixed for a “ day of 
fasting and humiliation for blasphemies and heresies,” 
it was evidently directed against the army. The posi- 
tion of the troops was undoubtedly peculiar. This 
army of 20,000 to 30,000 men, raised purely for home 
service, and not for foreign conquests, did not consist of 
mere adventurers, but of free, well-to-do, and thought- 
ful people, who, though highly paid for their services, 
had no idea of enriching themselves by warfare, but 
on the contrary, gloried in the greatest self-denial. 
They were sober, dutiful, and deeply religious, and 
though individuals might look for promotion, they one 
and all expected to be treated as countrymen have a 
right to expect from one another. Every private 
soldier helped to maintain a discipline which, however 
strict in other respects, allowed any one of their 
number, who was “moved by the Spirit,” to interpret 


54 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


the scriptures to both officers and men, and encouraged 
the general discussion of their own position with regard 
to the rest of the world, and of the events and compli- 
cations of the moment. They represented what is 
quite unprecedented in history, namely, an organiza- 
tion which was perfectly irresistible in battle, united 
with an active and exclusive party spirit, which gave 
them perfect equality in spite of the differences of 
rank, And this many-sided, yet united body, made 
the most of Puritanism by opposing it, not only to 
Popery and the surpliced puppet-show of the Angli- 
cans, but also to the narrow-minded and domineering 
Scottish church, which set itself up as the supreme 
authority in the state. So it was natural enough that 
the existing government wished to get rid of such a 
dangerous rival. On March 11th Cromwell wrote to 
Fairfax, “Never were spirits of men more embittered 
than now. Surely the devil hath but a short time.” ! 
The troops were now quartered in the county of Essex, 
and numerous petitions, counter-petitions, and remon- 
strances ended in an order from the Parliament for- 
bidding the troops to approach within twenty-five 
miles of the metropolis. Soon afterwards it was 
resolved to send this armed bugbear out of the 
country, as there were no other means of getting rid 
of it. 

In Ireland the principles of Westminster had still 
found no favour. After the massacre of 1641, Lord 
Ormonde, the King’s lord-lieutenant, endeavoured to 
establish at least a truce between Catholics and Pro- 
testants, and calmly disregarded all commands of the 


1 “Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part iii., letter xliii. 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 55 


Parliament to punish the rebels, and to expel the 
fanatical agents of Rome. Even after the defeat at 
Naseby, and the flight of his royal master to the Scots, 
Ormonde thought to send considerable reinforcements 
to the King’s assistance. In the meanwhile the Irish 
had united their forces in a very ominous way, and to 
ensure Kngland’s safety it was thought necessary to 
send out 11,400 men of Fairfax’s army—seven regi- 
ments of foot, and seven of horse. Of the remaining 
troops, it was decreed that only those should bear 
arms who were required for the garrisons. No member 
of Parhament was to continue in the army, and every 
officer to take the Covenant. 

This brought about a rupture. A considerable 
number of officers and men was indeed ready to start, 
but the great majority of the troops sent in a proud 
and insolent declaration, requesting “ three-and-forty 
weeks of hard-earned pay,” indemnity for acts done in 
war, clear discharge according to contract, and no 
service in Ireland, except under “our old com- 
manders.” This made very bad blood in the party, 
which still convulsively kept the lead in the Commons ; 
and threatening resolutions were issued against these 
' “ Einemies of the State, and Disturbers of the Peace.” 
Every day.the position became more strained between 
Westminster and Saffron Walden, the headquarters of 
the troops. The latter would not allow their claims to 
be represented by Major-General Skippon, who was 
ready to go to Ireland on the above conditions, but pre- 
ferred to send their own agents, elected by the common 
men of the army—“ adjutators”’ (misspelt agitators) — 
who appear for the first time on this occasion, Crom- 
well is reported to have exclaimed one day amidst the 


56 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


stormy contradictions of such men as Denzil Holles, for 
instance: “ These men will never leave till the Army 
pull them out by the ears.” * Onanother occasion he 
earned the gratitude of the House by his efforts at 
headquarters. 

Still, at the end of May the resolution was adhered 
to, that all troops not wanted for Ireland or the garrison 
towns were to submit to be being disbanded, on pay- 
ment of the arrears and the granting of the indemnity. 
As, however, they did not disperse on the appointed 
day, but on the contrary demanded a general meeting 
with their officers, the latter thought fit to interfere 
themselves. 

A great rendezvous, indeed an armed parliament, 
was held at Royston on June 10th, when it was 
resolved to send a manifesto to the lord mayor and 
aldermen of London, signed by Fairfax, Cromwell, 
and eleven other leaders. This was a sharp declara- 
tion, apparently from the rude pen of Cromwell, 
sternly demanding satisfaction from the detractors of 
the army, and making the City (which was the refuge 
of the leaders at Westminster) responsible for the 
consequences. It further contained the assurance that 
there was no intention of meddling either with the 
civil or presbyterial government, but also clearly 
stated the reason why they had come so near to the 
City without otherwise interfering with anyone. 

When, two days later, the Parliament’s Commis- 
sioners appeared to break up and dismiss the troops, 
every regiment gathered round its banner at an 
appointed place. Then St. Albans was made head- 


* “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part iii, “ Army 
Manifesto.” 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT, 57 


quarters. But the majority at Westminster was no 
longer to be relied upon, especially as the King had 
two days before fallen into the enemy’s hands, just 
when the Lords, with the help of French influence, 
had hoped to keep him in the neighbourhood of the 
metropolis. 

It is well-known how, on June 2nd, Charles was 
arrested at Holmby and taken to the camp at New- 
market. On his ride thither, between Cambridge and 
Huntingdon, Fairfax, Cromwell, and other leaders 
greeted him. Who can doubt that this was done at 
the instigation of Cromwell, so as to bring this shib- 
boleth into the power of the anti-monarchy party, and 
deprive the enemy of a distinct advantage? True, he 
kept in the background during the transaction; yet 
who would affirm that he worked for himself? 

The effect of this event was at once apparent 
when, on the 16th, the army accused eleven members 
of the House, of treason, among whom were Holles, 
Stapleton, and Waller, and required them to be put 
upon their trial; fresh elections were also considered 
desirable. This went on till the end of July ; while the 
parties at Westminster counterbalanced one another, 
and the House of Commons, under the tremendous 
pressure brought to bear uponit, cancelled some of its 
most aggressive resolutions, 

On the 26th, however, the Presbyterian zeal of the 
City burst into flames. Crowds of mechanics, appren- 
tices, sailors, and others, rushed into the House, and 
insisted that the Presbyterian Militia Ordinance be not 
revoked. Instead of making peace with the dissenters, 
London ventured to make a stand against them, and 
defended Presbyterianism as the only saving reli- 


58 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


gion. But the dissenting members of Parliament, 
Lords as well as Commons, had already made them- 
selves scarce, together with both Speakers “ with the 
Mace,” and taken refuge with those who had for so 
long hung like a storm-cloud over the City. On 
August 3rd they met the army at Hounslow, and were 
received with acclamation. 

As the southern banks of the Thames disapproved 
of any sort of opposition, the civil authorities and the 
excited people, who had been worked upon by their 
ministers, likewise changed their minds, and accepted 
the offers of the commander-in-chief. Three days 
later, Fairfax, with four regiments and his body-guard, 
marched through Kensington and Hyde Park to 
London, in a warlike procession. The soldiers had 
laurels in their hats, and came as countrymen to 
countrymen. Though the fight was not by any means 
ended, still the Independents had got a tremendous 
start. Instead of disbanding, the army took up its 
quarters in full view of the City; at Putney in the 
west, and at Southwark on the other side of the 
Thames. 

All this time, both parties were fighting for posses- 
sion of the King’s person. He was now residing at 
Hampton Court, in a style rather more worthy of his 
exalted position, and really felt almost comfortable 
under the supervision of brave soldiers, who expressed 
their opinions firmly and fearlessly. He was indeed 
amazed at the forcible requests of these Independents. 
How much more smoothly church and state seemed to 
amalgamate under them, than under the propositions 
of the Covenant, which the Presbyterians had wanted 
mercilessly to impose upon him. 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 59 


All the strictly Royalist, nay, even Catholic circles, 
as far as Rome, were very much on the alert. Charles 
himself discussed the possibility of such a union with 
Cromwell and his gifted son-in-law Ireton. Cromwell 
even felt the personal charm of royalty, and for a time 
was inclined to hope that the opponents would be 
reconciled, solely by the influence of his own party, 
whose power would thereby be acknowledged. But 
to carry out the idea floating in his busy brain, the 
confidence which certainly was not affectation with 
him, should have been met with similar confidence 
both by his own troops and the King himself. 

Now it was a peculiarity of this army, that each 
soldier had his individual convictions. Buta union 
with the King offered them no prospect of obtaining 
that for which they had taken arms, namely, separation 
from church and state, and equal rights for everyone. 
So their suspicions were roused against their officers, 
when they saw their leader associating with the King 
and his hated surroundings. ‘They credited the malı- 
cious report, that Cromwell would be paid for his de- 
fection, by being raised to the vacant peerage of the 
earldom of Essex, as his ancestor was before him. 
Some of the officers, such as Colonel Rainsborough, 
and restless, excitable John Lilburne, even encouraged 
this feeling, which was steadily gaining ground among 
the troops. 

The representatives or “ adjutators” of the army 
not only hotly insisted on the punishment of those 
among their leaders who were, they considered, com- 
promised by their intercourse with the King, but 
plainly accused the latter of bloodguiltiness, which 
cried to Heaven for vengeance. Thencame a crashin 


60 OLIVER CROMWELL, 


the army council, and especially with the creator 
of the army, who was bold enough to think of a con- 
ciliation with what remained of the old civil and 
ecclesiastical authority. Cromwell was, in fact, con- 
fronted by the demand for an entire social revolution, 

Even now we know far too little about the man 
himself. He was present at the prayer-meeting in 
Putney Church on September 18th, when the disband- 
ing of the troops was taken into consideration. A few 
weeks later he took part in the debates of the poorly 
represented House of Commons, and zealously advo- 
cated the temporal limitation of the existing monarchy, 
according to Independent ideas, which implied an 
entire dissolution and reorganization, such as the 
soldiers wanted. But the craze for equality was 
spreading like wildfire. If the troops were once 
allowed to choose their own officers, there would be 
an end to obedience and discipline. Sir Thomas 
Fairfax already wanted to retire. Then the “ Council 
of State”’ interfered, and partly by concessions, but 
also by sterner means, repressed the insurrection. On 
November 15th a court-martial pronounced judgment 
on the first levellers. Three of them were condemned 
to death, one of whom, decided by lot, was shot there 
and then. 

A startling event now took place, which, combined 
with the return of most of the regiments under their 
commanders, helped materially to bridge over the 
split which had assumed such alarming dimensions. 
For the realization of Cromwell’s short-lived dream, 
the King himself was a necessary factor; but his 
character was the very reverse of truthful, and though 
he accused Cromwell of want of loyalty, he was not 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 61 


much better himself; and even if he had been capable 
of holding his own, he would never have tolerated an 
army teeming with democratic-religious principles. 

Cromwell, with the good of the country always be- 
fore his eyes, soon drew in his horns, and stuck to 
the party among which he had grown up, which gave 
Charles sufficient excuse for breaking his promises. 
On the evening of November 10th he succeeded in 
escaping from Hampton Court. Cromwell had in 
vain charged his cousin Whalley to keep a sharp 
look-out. However, all the ports were closed, and 
on the 13th the King gave himself up to Colonel 
Robert Hammond, the governor of the Isle of Wight, 
who disapproved of the fanaticism of the troops, and 
from whom he probably expected a more favourable 
reception. But the officers were now beginning 
to be reconciled, not only with each other, but 
with their subordinates who were returning to their 
duty. 

While Charles was kept strictly imprisoned in 
Carisbrooke Castle, the Parliament moved the most 
ominous resolutions. For the purpose of frustrating 
the intrigues of the Scotch Presbyterians it was 
decreed on January 3rd, 1648, that any person com- 
municating with the royal prisoner should be subject 
to the penalties of high treason. On the same day a 
new committee was organized at Derby House, which 
was to be the highest authority for England and 
Ireland. It consisted of twenty-one members, and 
excluded Scots and Presbyterians,—the effect of an 
increasing reconciliation between Army and Par- 
liament. Thereby a small number of military and 
civil leaders, the so-called “ grandees,’” obtained the 


62 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


helm. They owed their means to the great sequestra- 
tions. Life and social intercourse had got into a 
decidedly Parliamentary groove. The noisy amuse- 
ments of the Court were replaced by fast-days and 
crowded prayer-meetings. Still, a vague feeling 
prevailed that these new arrangements would not 
really satisfy either the City of London nor Scotland, 
and certainly not the repressed Royalist sympathies. 

To strengthen their confidence in the help of 
the Lord, officers and privates met one day in the 
royal halls of Windsor, now their headquarters, and 
had recourse to prayer and pious meditation, in 
which Lieutenant-General Cromwell, lately recovered 
from a dangerous illness, took a prominent part. 
About this time he subscribed £1,000 for the conquest 
of Ireland, out of the donations granted him from the 
sequestrations. 

All this time a second civil war was brewing, in 
consequence of the undue power of the oligarchy, 
and the threatening attitude of the warlike Indepen- 
dents. There was a great and universal longing 
for a monarchy which should be free, and yet have 
wholesome limitations, and where the Crown should 
represent the highest authority. The Presbyterian 
tendencies in London, the traditions of the people, 
which in some districts were absolutely unchangeable, 
and the power of the nobles, still very strong in the 
West and North, all united in wishing for a restoration. 

In spite of the strict watch kept at Carisbrooke, the 
Scotch Commissioners, who were ousted from the 
English Government, actually succeeded in carrying 
on negotiations with Charles with the utmost secrecy. 
The fresh elections in Scotland brought into power 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 63 


the Duke of Hamilton’s party, which was entirely 
opposed to the Duke of Argyle and his rigid Pres- 
byterians. His idea was to unite both religions 
and both countries under the Crown, which was to 
be rescued by the force of arms. 

Once more Royalists obtained commissions, and 
rose up in Yorkshire, while in Wales their example 
was followed by the Presbyterian governors appointed 
by the government. Among the latter, Colonel Poyer 
declared war by seizing the stronghold of Pembroke. 
And now the discontent of the people and the nobility 
also infected the navy, naturally antagonistic to the 
well-trained army. The government could only 
secure part of the fleet lying at anchor in front of 
the Downs; the rest set sail for Holland, where the 
Prince of Wales had taken refuge, and took him on 
board to help him regain the kingdom of his fathers. 
Influenced by the tide of popular opinion rather than 
the street riots, the Parliament once more changed 
its tactics. If either of the two attempts to rescue 
the King had succeeded, who can tell whether the 
powerful army would not even then have been routed ? 
But the monarch’s safety did not now merely depend 
upon overcoming his enemies, and required that 
numerous weighty tendencies should get the better 
of all combinations standing in their way. 

Cromwell started for South Wales as early as the 
3rd of May, to quell the rebellion there. The defen- 
ders of Pembroke resisted for months, and when at 
last they surrendered, on July 11th, he treated the 
Royalists more mercifully than those who had once 
been adherents of the Parliament, “ because,” as he 
said, “they have sinned against so much light, and 


64 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


against so many evidences of Divine Providence.” ! 
About the same time Fairfax suppressed a dangerous 
rising in Kent and Essex, and met with fierce re- 
sistance at Colchester. On July 5th the Duke of 
Buckingham, his younger brother Lord Francis Vil- 
hers, and Lord Holland, again took arms in Sussex, 
but very soon got the worst of it. The Scots, en- 
couraged by this division in their enemy’s camp, took 
the opportunity of invading England, though but 
insufficiently prepared. 

The Duke of Hamilton, supported by numerous 
nobles and powerful cavalry, crossed the border in 
magnificent style, but instead of choosing the York- 
shire valleys in which to decide the fate of the two 
countries, he marched through the mountainous dis- 
tricts of Cumberland and Lancashire, with the idea 
that, if he once got to Manchester, he would be able 
to rescue both Wales and the metropolis. But 
Cromwell had sent some of his troops to the North 
in June to investigate matters, and was now at 
hberty himself. On August 17th he descended 
into the Ribble Valley, and entirely routed the 
English Royalists under Sir Marmaduke Langdale. 
During tho following days he attacked the main 
Scottish army, and defeated them at Wigan and 
Warrington. His horses were exhausted, and his 
men had suffered much from adverse weather and 
bad roads; but Cromwell was victorious in spite of 
these drawbacks, thanks to his splendid strategy and 
the discipline of his troops. 

Hamilton’s foot soldiers had laid down their arms, 


I “ Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part iv., letter xii. 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 65 


so he and the cavalry had to surrender on the 25th to 
General Lambert, who had pursued them. Cromwell 
informed the House of Commons that, with 8,600 men, 
he had beaten the enemy numbering 21,000, adding, 
as usual, an exhortation to give all glory to the Lord: 
“It is not for me to give advice, nor to say a word 
what use you should make of this;—more than to 
pray you, and all that acknowledge God, that they 
would exalt Him,—and not hate His people, who are 
as the apple of His eye, and for whom even Kings 
shall be reproved.”' 

' But that three days’ battle had destroyed the 
influence of Scotland upon church and state. The 
tables were speedily turned when Cromwell marched 
towards the North; Colchester surrendered to 
Fairfax, and the danger from the coast disappeared 
quite as quickly. Cromwell arrived in the neighbour- 
hood of Berwick on September 16th, driving what 
remained of Hamilton’s army before him; and from 
there sent messages to the Duke of Argyle, and also 
to the Committee of Estates for Scotland. Sir 
George Monro and Lord Lanark (Hamilton’s 
brother) were still engaged in rescuing all that 
remained after the defeat. But in the West they 
were opposed, both on religious and political grounds, 
by the “ Whiggamore raid,” which was supported 
by old Lord Leven in Edinburgh Castle, Argyle and 
his followers, and the most determined among the 
Presbyterians. In.a letter addressed to the Com- 
mittee of Estates, Cromwell proudly reminds them 
that the object of the army was “to recover the 


1 “ Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part iv., letter Ixiv. 
F 


66 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


ancient rights and inheritance of the kingdom,” 
particularly from those who had dared to infringe 
them in company with the English malignants. He 
wished for the “ Union of the People of God in love 
and amity,’’ and considered it his duty to advance, 
until Berwick and Carlisle should have surrendered, 
and the enemy be driven into a corner. The im- 
portant border town of Berwick only capitulated in 
consequence of an order from the Earl of Lanark 
on September 29th. On the 21st, however, Cromwell 
crossed the Tweed with four regiments of horse and 
six of foot, under the pretext of the unprotected state 
of the border, and on the strength of the commands 
of the English Parliament to assist their friends in 
Scotland. The next day, having negotiated with 
Argyle and others at Mordington, he slowly pro- 
ceeded until he reached Edinburgh, on October 4th, 
where he was lodged at Moray House in the Canon- 
gate, and respectfully received by the adherents of the 
Covenant—probably the same men who had once 
vowed his destruction. By this time the enemy’s 
troops, having looked in vain for assistance from 
the Highlands at the Bridge of Stirling, dispersed 
altogether. 

Thereupon Cromwell decreed that no one who had 
been “active in, or consenting to, the said engage- 
ment with England, should be employed in any public 
Place or Trust whatsoever.” While England quite 
approved of this measure for her safety, it was rather 
a blow to Scottish independence. Then only did 
Cromwell take part in the festivities prepared for 
him by old Lord Leven and Argyle at Moray House. 
The heavy artillery fired a salute when he departed on 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 67 


the 7th with the greater part of the troops. In a 
report to Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons, 
he confidently speaks of the changes wrought in the 
sister country with his help, though there was but 
little prospect of any reconciliation between Pres- 
byterians and Independents. Having garrisoned 
Carlisle on his way, he proceeded to besiege 
Pontefract, which had resisted long and stubbornly. 
But while he was in quarters at Knottingley, his 
attention was soon exclusively arrested by the ap- 
proaching crisis in the South. 

The Scotch invasion was the last hope of Pres- 
byterian Royalism at Westminster. In spite of all 
the new regulations, a treaty was formed at Newport, 
in the Isle of Wight, and negotiations entered into 
with the King. Charles was inclined to make con- 
cessions. But even in his present critical situation 
the incorrigible monarch could not disguise the fact 
that his intentions were not a bit more straight- 
forward than they had been hitherto ; indeed, he was 
as sanguine as ever in plotting for his own escape 
and revenge on all his enemies. Nevertheless, a 
treaty was contemplated, whereby for the first time 
the modified Scottish system might have been made 
to harmonize with an hereditary and properly limited 
monarchy. 

The Commons, what remained of the Lords, and 
the metropolis, were inclined to accept ıt uncon- 
ditionally, but before the treaty was concluded the 
scale was turned by the latest triumphs of the 
troops. How could the victorious army approve 
its own destruction, as it was planned in the treaty 
of Newport? The agitation among the soldiers soon 


68 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


made itself felt in stern protestations against the 
Parliament, demanding .the punishment of all delin- 
quents, and especially of the Chief Delinquent, “ who 
has again involved this nation in blood.” After some 
hesitation the officers, including General Fairfax, sent 
in a remonstrance to the same effect on November 
20th. 

The army had long considered itself the protector 
of the people’s rights. It now not only insisted on 
the observance of the laws according to Independent 
ideas, but, in the spirit of the Old Testament, de- 
manded the sacrifice of the ‘‘ Chief Delinquent,” in 
expiation of all the innocent blood crying to Heaven. 
for vengeance. There is no doubt that this quite 
coincided with Cromwell’s ideas, although he did not 
fan the flame of popular fury in the first instance. 
True, those ominous words from the battlefield at 
Warrington are directed against the King. From 
the camp at Pontefract he poured forth his wrath at 
the insult to the army, £.e. the indulgence shown by 
the Parhament to those persons who had compromised 
themselves more than ever they did in the first civil 
war, because they wanted “to vassalise the English 
to a foreign nation.” On November 25th he writes 
to Colonel Hammond, whom he still believes the 
King’s keeper, and having assured his friend that 
the “chain of Providence” had brought him hither, 
and that Person to him, continues: “ Authorities 
and powers are the ordinance of God. This or 
that species is of human institution, and limited, 
some with larger, others with stricter bands, each 
one according to its constitution. But I do not 
therefore think the Authorities may do anything and 


SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT. 69 


’’ yet such obedience be due. All agree that there 


are cases where it is ‘lawful to resist.’! In the 


meantime, and during his absence, destiny fulfilled 
itself. 


1 “ Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part iv., letter Ixxxv. 


CHAPTER VII. 
THE COMMONWEALTH. 


THE KING’S REMOVAL TO HURST CASTLE.—-PRIDE’S PURGE. 
—PURIFICATION OF THE PARLIAMENT.—TRIAL AND 
EXECUTION OF THE KING.—DISSOLUTION OF THE 
HOUSE OF LORDS.—THE COMMONWEALTH ESTABLISHED, 
—EXECUTION OF HAMILTON, HOLLAND, CAPEL, AND 
POYER.—TROOPS SENT TO IRELAND UNDER CROMWELL. 
— STATE OF IRELAND.—SIEGE OF DROGHEDA.—WEX- 
FORD. — ROSS. — CLANMACNOISE. — DECLARATION, — 
KILKENNY.—CLONMEL DEFENDED BY O’NEIL.—CROM- 
WELL’S RETURN TO LONDON. 


N November 27th the army gave orders to move 

the King from Carisbrooke to gloomy Hurst 
Castle, on the coast of Hampshire; and at the same 
time the troops, mostly in the neighbourhood of Lon- 
don, were commanded to march to St. James’s and 
Whitehall. But on the 4th and 5th of December it 
was decided by the majority of the Commons that the 
King be brought to London, the treaty of Newport 
being considered a sufficient ground of settlement. 
On the 6th, Colonel Rich’s regiment of horse and 
Colonel Pride’s regiment of foot guarded all entrances 
to the House of Commons, and discharged the City 


THE COMMONWEALTIT. 71 


trainbands. Colonel Pride, with a list of names in his 
hand, had forty-one members arrested who had been 
pointed out to him as refractory, silently pointing to 
his soldiers if asked “by what law?” The evening 
of this purification Cromwell himself arrived at West- 
minster, having left Lambert to conclude the siege of 
Pontefract. The next day he appeared in Parliament, 
‚and quelled the last spark of resistance by concluding 
“ Pride’s Purge.” The mutilated Parliament, like the 
City, had to bow to the invading troops. 

So it had come to this, that this standing army, in 
forming which, to suit their own purposes, both 
Charles I. and Strafford had come to grief, now 
unanimously, officers and men, contemplated the death 
of the King. Monarchy could not exist side by side 
with the discipline of the Independents: one counter- 
acted the other. The Commons took no notice of the 
final protest from the Lords, and brought the fatal 
accusation against Charles in behalf of the liberty of 
the people, which, as though in mockery, was repre- 
sented by an armed force. A tribunal was formed, 
unprecedented indeed in judicial records, to pronounce 
sentence on the giver of all laws, the King himself, 
for having in a tyrannical manner encroached upon 
the ancient liberties of the people by his treason and 
hypocrisy, and brought desolation and bloodshed 
upon the country. 

Who has not been impressed by the noble bearing 
of the monarch, three times brought before that 
tribunal, and admired the dignity of the martyr for 
his kingdom, when he received his death-blow in 
front of his own palace, on January 30th, 1649? But 
whoever has followed the growth of the struggle 


72 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


under father and son, and realizes the attitude of the 
latter, must admit that Charles I. was by no means an 
innocent victim, such as, for instance, Louis XVI. 
On the contrary, the opposition to his authority was 
excited by his every action, and eventually took such 
terrible shape in the tremendous armed force which 
carried all before it. 

Among Cromwell’s numerous calumniators, not one 
has been able to prove that he wanted to destroy the 
King merely to gratify his own ambition, and in the 
hope of usurping his place. He was carried away by 
the universal current of events, and had to yield to 
the irresistible power of an independent and armed 
people. In company with numerous officers, nobles, 
members of Parliament, and common council-men, he 
belonged to the High Court of Justice, all the sittings 
of which he attended, save one. On January 29th 
he signed the warrant empowering three colonels to 
guard and superintend the execution. 

To accuse Cromwell of not having foreseen the 
fateful consequences of the regicide would be saying 
very little for his clear-sightedness, and would place 
his penetrating intellect on a level with the chimera 
of excited fanaticism. Not long before he had sought 
to avert this extreme measure by direct intercoyrse 
with the King, but circumstances proved more power- 
ful than all his plans. He was perfectly aware that, 
crime or not, a tremendous political mistake had been 
made, which would be sure to avenge itself sooner or 
later. With such a prospect before him, he can 
hardly have entertained the idea of usurpation. 

It was quite in keeping with his vigorous nature, 
and all the circumstances which brought him into 


THE COMMONWEALTH. — 78 


power, that subsequently he should have played a 
very important part in the continuous revolution of 
the whole state. He was bound to stand up for the 
Commonwealth, not only against the King, but against 
the entire parliamentary system which had hitherto 
prevailed, After the agitation among the troops in 
the autumn of 1647, the Independents never rested 
until they had embodied the idea of the absolute 
sovereignty of the people in a series of very extreme 
and socially-levelling propositions. The council of 
officers partly checked and partly encouraged them, 
and the decision was against the King as much as 
against the Parliament; accordingly the “ grandees,” 
officers, and leaders of the House, put into execution 
the measures which succeeded the forcible repression 
of the monarchy. 

The House of’ Lords was dissolved as being useless 
and dangerous, and all legislative power placed in the 
hands of the impious fanatics constituting the House 
‘ of Commons. The laws which for centuries had been 
the foundation of both state and society, as well as 
the administration of justice, were now hanging by the 
merest thread, thanks to a few meanspirited lawyers, 
who, against their own convictions, bowed to the 
ruling powers. Subsequent events alone proved 
Cromwell’s merits in maintaining the very foundations 
of the constitution. As a matter of course he was a 
member of the Council of State, which was nominated 
about the middle of February; indeed, he was their 
first president, and under him it obtained more 
authority and ruled more independently over army, 
navy, foreign affairs, and the punishment of crime, 
than any king had done since time immemorial. 


74 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Finally, by the Act of Parliament of May 19th, Eng- 
land was declared a Commonwealth or Free-state, and 
the royal effigy on the great seal was superseded by 
the maps of England and Ireland, wıth a representa- 
tion of the House of Commons on the reverse side. 
The High Court of Justice exercised its powers 
firmly as well as kindly. Some of the principal 
Royalists—the Duke of Hamilton, Lords Holland and 
Capel— were indeed executed, but the majority were 
pardoned. A sharp watch was kept both over speeches 
and writings, and it became necessary to place a 
strong check on the wild fanaticism of the Levellers, 
who were found even among the higher ranks of the 
army. This coincided with the necessity of sending 
a strong force to Ireland, and on March 15th, as soon 
as the City had found the supplies, Lieutenant-General 
Cromwell was appointed commander-in-chief, just as 
he was concluding the marriage-treaty of his eldest 
son Richard, which had been going on for months, ın 
the midst of every kind of storm and excitement. 
Two years before, a gloomy spirit had gained 
a footing in the regiments, which threatened to 
disturb the peace everywhere, but now Cromwell no 
longer tolerated its existence. The rebellious ones 
were, one and all, weeded from the ranks, and John 
Lilburn, with three companions, mercilessly thrown 
into the Tower for having disseminated inflammatory 
pamphlets. The army met at Whitehall to decide 
what regiments were. to go to Ireland. The mutiny 
in the troop of Whalley’s regiment quartered in the 
City was summarily dealt with, and among five 
doomed to die one was shot. In almost all regiments 
men refused to go to Ireland, and in May thousands 


THE COMMONWEALTH. 75 


rose in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, hoping to 
realize the most crazy ideas. Lord Fairfax and 
Cromwell hastened to break up these parties, and 
indeed it was high time, so as to prevent the growth 
of chimeras like those called into existence centuries 
before by Wat Tyler and Jack Cade in England, and 
Thomas Münzer and Johann von Leyden in Germany. 

Only when this danger was averted, and Cromwell, 
Fairfax, and others had been made doctors by the 
thoroughly reformed University of Oxford, and had 
been welcomed in the City by serious dinners and 
sermons, then only did Cromwell think of his next 
difficult task. 

In the Emerald Isle there were endless opposing 
factions of native Catholics, Catholics of English 
origin, Anglican Royalists, and Presbyterians of all 
sorts. 

The efforts of the Earl of Ormond in trying to reap 
a plentiful harvest for the King had been principally 


+ « There are Parties on the back of Parties; at war with the 
world and with each other. There are Catholics of the Pale 
demanding freedom of religion, under my Lord This and my 
Lord That. There are Old-Irish Catholics under Pope’s 
Nuncios, under Abbas O’Teague of the excommunications, and 
Owen Roe O’Neil ;—demanding not religious freedom only, but 
what we now call ‘Repeal of the Union,’ and unable to agree 
with Catholics of the English Pale. Then there are Ormond 
Royalists, of the Episcopalian and mixed creeds, strong for King 
without Covenant: Ulster and other Presbyterians strong for 
King and Covenant : lastly, Michael Jones and the Commonwealth 
of England, who want neither King nor Covenant. All these, 
plunging and tumbling in huge discord for the last eight years, 
have made of Ireland and its affairs the black unutterable blot 
we speak of.’—Carlyle, “ Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” 


part v. 


76 OLIVER CROMWELL, 


frustrated by the Papal Nuncio Rinnucini, who opposed 
the tendencies of the English monarchy supported by 
France, in the interests of Rome united to Spain. 
Consequently Ormond preferred surrender to the 
Parliamentary troops, who were, after all, Englishmen, 
and not Romanists; and thereby saved the island 
from entire separation. The Nuncio carried the 
Catholic and Papal interference so far that a reaction 
set in which, in the summer of 1648, during the last 
rising in favour of Charles I., gave Ormond reason to 
hope that he had a chance of the support of the Irish 
in the royal cause. Even after the King’s execution, 
the enthusiasm for Charles IT., who was first proclaimed 
in Ireland, was a bond of union between Irish Catholics 
and English Royalists. Ormond had the upper hand 
in the four provinces, while Prince Rupert and his 
Cavaliers, who had taken to the sea, hoisted the Royal 
Standard in the Scilly and Channel Isles, and in the 
Port of Kinsale. ) 
Dublin alone, where Michael Jones was in command, 
which Ormond himself had once surrendered to the 
Parliamentarians, could not be retaken. Still Ormond’s 
position, backed up by various parties united in the 
Stuart interest, was so strong, that it would have been 
a disgrace for the Republic to have given up Ireland. 
On the contrary, their object was to overthrow Royalism 
on the other side of St. George’s Channel as well as 
on this, and then to uproot Catholicity. Hence Crom- 
well’s mission ; and as the leader of England’s military 
force he even outshone his superior, Lord Fairfax. 
The Lieutenant-General, who had been made Lord- 
Lieutenant of Ireland, started from London on the 
evening of July 11th, aftera pious prayer-meeting. He 


THE COMMONWEALTH. 77 


drove through Charing Cross in a state coach drawn 
by sıx Flanders mares,surrounded by his body-guard of 
eighty officers, and preceded by a flourish of trumpets. 
He was followed by 15,000 hardened soldiers (one- 
third of them cavalry) through Bristol and Pembroke, 
where the ships ready to receive them were lying in 
Milford Haven. His brother-in-law, Major-General 
Ireton, and, as usual, his army-chaplain, Hugh Peters, 
was included in his suite. When about to embark, on 
August 13th, he wrote from on board the flagship 
“ John ” to the father-in-law of his son Richard, who 
had accompanied him so far, to inform him that 
Lieutenant-General Jones had made a sally out of Dub- 
lin and beaten back Ormond’s besieging force. Two 
days later he entered the conquered city, where he 
was received with acclamations by the eager crowd, and 
in a speech pointed out the work to which he had been 
called by Divine Providence. 

On this ground, face to face with so much malice 
and superstition, he thoroughly felt that he was the 
Champion of the God of Justice. The first thing to 
be done was to remodel the troops he found there 
after the pattern of his own, and to issue a stringent 
proclamation to officers and men, impressing upon 
them the necessity of abstaining from plunder and the 
pillaging of innocent inhabitants. But he soon set 
to work to storm the fortified towns, beginning with 
Drogheda, where Ormond had heedlessly shut in 
3,000 of his bravest men. The stern refusal of Sir 
John Ashton to surrender the town entailed the most 
frightful punishment. A week elapsed before a breach 
was battered. The storm of Drogheda took place on 
the evening of September the 11th, and after having 


78 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


been slightly repulsed at first, Cromwell’s men fought 
with redoubled fury. After a strong entrenchment 
had been taken, the governor and 2,000 men were, by 
Cromwell’s express orders, mercilessly put to the sword. 
He also commanded the steeple of the church to be 
set on fire, where the Sunday before, mass had once 
again been celebrated, so that its defenders perished 
miserably in the flames. In the succeeding sieges, all 
who surrendered were sent to the plantations across 
the sea. In a letter to Lenthall, Cromwell seeks to 
justify the cruel order, given, as he said, in the heat of 
action: “I] am persuaded that this is a righteous 
judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who 
have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood ; 
and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood 
for the future.”* While thus annihilating these heroic 
defenders of Irish independence, he considered himself 
the instrument of Providence; and though not na- 
turally bloodthirsty, he calmly employed the most 
horrible means, thinking to quell the Old-Irish mur- 
derous propensities by murder itself. The terror 
he inspired was so universal, that the garrisons of 
Dundalk and Trim, who were inclined to be equally 
rebellious, soon marched off in double quick time. 
Then the commander-in-chief at Wexford tried to 
stop his progress by all sorts of artifices. On Octo- 
ber 11th the castle capitulated in the midst of nego- 
tiations, in which Cromwell had promised immunity 
to all who surrendered ; but his soldiers burst into the 
town and cut down over 2,000 of the inhabitants. 
Cromwell, though confessing that he would have wished 


1 “Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part v.. letter cv. 


THE COMMONWEALTH. 79 


for moderation, looks upon this also as a judgment of 
God, because those who were slain “had exercised so 
many cruelties upon the lives of divers poor Protes- 
tants.” With his usual sharp-sightedness, he saw 
ab once that the desolate pillaged town, with its 
wharves, shipping, and great commercial advantages, 
would be an excellent stronghold for a disciplined 
reciment, 

The shocking example of Drogheda was a warning 
to others. After a short resistance, the strong castle 
of Ross on the Barrow capitulated; while Cork, 
Youghal, and several other small towns, abandoned 
Lord Inchiquin, commander of the rebels in Munster. 
Waterford, with its water-girt entrenchments, was a 
more difficult matter to deal with. In consequence of 
the inclement season, Cromwell was obliged to turn 
his back upon this one town, and to take up his winter 
quarters at Cork, there to give his exhausted troops 
a rest. Everywhere else all resistance had been vain; 
while the navy, under such men as Blake, Ayscough, 
and Deane, thoroughly scoured the seas, and helped 
to demolish the fastnesses of Cavalier pirates at Kin- 
sale and Bandon Bridge. 

Cromwell aspired to far greater results than merely 
winning battles. He was not only a Republican, 
but a thorough Englishman, and above all an ad- 
vanced Puritan, and in this three-fold character he 
soon dissolved the very unstable union of English 
Royalists and Irish Catholics. Now was seen the 
wisdom of his policy in securing the services of the 
Irish landowner, Lord Broghil, through whom the 
Protestants of Munster could approach their conqueror. 
Wherever Englishmen were still fighting for the King, 


so OLIVER CROMWELL. 


they preferred surrender to their own countrymen to 
further defending the cause of the hated Celt. This 
happened at Ross and Youghal, and even on the 
battlefield itself. Religious differences were more: 
marked than ever. When, before the surrender of 
Wexford, the governor demanded perfect immunity of 
allchurches and convents, and all the rights and fran- 
chises of the clergy, secular and religious, the Lord- 
Lieutenant designated his propositions as impertinent 
‘and detestable. The governor of Ross, who made 
one of his conditions liberty of conscience, was in- 
formed, that if he meant liberty to celebrate mass, that 
could never be allowed ‘‘ where the Parliament of 
England have power.” 

It is very remarkable how, in the accounts of his 
Irish victories, Cromwell, besides giving all honour to 
God, lays such stress on the good of his country. With 
a deep national and religious feeling, he declares: 
“Yet let them with us say, even the most unsatisfied 
heart amongst them, that both are the righteous judg- © 
ments and mighty works of God. That He hath pulled 
the mighty from his seat, and calls to, an account for 
innocent blood. That He thus breaks the enemies of 
His Church in pieces.”* This was undoubtedly the 
intolerant spirit of the Old Testament, which the In- 
dependents had adopted; and in Ireland they cer- 
tainly acted upon it, by becoming the champions of 
Protestantism and Nationality. Since the horrors of 
1641, the most awful disorder reigned supreme. Hence 
his efforts to preach simple Christianity to the people, 
and let justice be done according to the ancient 


1 “Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part v., letter cxvi. 


THE COMMONWEALTH. 81 


English code. He himself took an opportunity of 
reading the Catholics a lesson. 

On December 4th a conventicle or general meeting 
of the Catholic hierarchy was held at Clanmacnoise, 
an old abbey among the swamps of the upper Shannon. 
The result was a fiery manifesto to the loyal Irish, 
admonishing them to unite themselves firmly with 
their bishops against the English, as they would other- 
wise deliver themselves up to death, or exile in the 
tobacco plantations, and their religion to extermina- 
tion. The manifesto particularly alluded to that un- 
favourable answer which Cromwell had given the 
governor of Ross, respecting the celebration of mass. 
Thereupon the Lord-Lieutenant issued a counter-de- 
claration, by which he could hardly hope to convince 
his antagonists of better things; written in pious wrath, 
and, like the manifesto of the bishops, largely circulated 
in print. This document is a wonderful memorial of his 
individual opinions, and proves the hopeless incompati- 
bility between national policy and religious animosity. 

The Puritans looked upon any special privilege of 
the clergy as a piece of anti-Christian presumption, 
and considered the appeal for a union against the 
common enemy asa downright lie; for these men were 
the very same rebels who, by the massacre of 1641, 
broke faith with England. Cromwell exhorts the 
people not to be deluded by priests anxious to secure 
their revenues and jurisdictions, nor by the “ interests 
of his Majesty,” which might mean the king of either 
France, Spain, or Scotland. “ Arbitrary power is a 
thing men begin to be weary of, in Kings and Church- 
men; their juggle between them mutually to uphold 
Civil and Ecclesiastical Tyranny begins to be trans- 

G 


82 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


parent. Some have cast off both ; and hope by the 
grace of God to keep so. Others are at it !’””' 

He will not be convinced that the Catholic religion 
is inseparable from the sacrifice of the mass, in which 
all hierarchichal tendencies are united. Therefore he 
declares the assertion, that he has come to extirpate 
the Irish Catholics, to be a he. He further alleges 
that innocent and defenceless inhabitants have never 
been either put to death or transported, and that this 
expensive expedition was not undertaken for the sake 
of driving out a wretched people, but to “ break the 
power of a company of lawless rebels, who having 
cast off the authority of England, live as enemies to 
human society. .... We come, by the assistance of 
God, to hold forth and maintain the lustre and glory 
of English liberty in a Nation where we have an un- 
doubted right to do it ;—wherein the people of Ireland 
(if they listen not to such seducers as you are) may 
equally participate in all benefits ; to use their liberty 
and fortune equally with Englishmen, if they keep out 
of arms.”* No man ever followed in the footsteps of 
the old conquerors, who was so thoroughly convinced 
of the incorrigibility of his opponents as Cromwell 
was. And no one, either before or since, ever dealt 
Jreland and its ecclesiastical influences such a crushing 
blow as he did; only his time was too short for him 
to make a clean sweep of it. 

On January 29th, 1650, he left his winter quarters 
with his rested troops, and marched inland towards 
Kalkenny, Tipperary, and Limerick. The enemy had 
actually once more reassembled, and the last shred of 


] Y 4 a’ ‘ . 5 
“Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part v., “ Declaration.” 
* Did. 


THE COMMONWEALTH. 83 


Ormond’s authority had just succumbed to the per- 
tinacity of warlike bishops and fiery chiefs. So the 
English troops, who had hitherto fought on that side, 
were driven into the arms of the conqueror; but the 
natives, excited almost to frenzy by their fanatical 
leaders, resisted all the more firmly in their rocky 
strongholds. Cromwell, having made sure of Castle- 
town and Cashel, besieged Kilkenny, which had for 
some time been the centre of the opposition, and for- 
tunately induced it to surrender by written arguments 
on March 28th. All private soldiers were given their 
lives, and the officers allowed to depart for the Con- 
tinent on parole. But those who had formerly served 
the Parliament, or had born arms against it in 1648, 
were invariably shot, and all Catholic priests hanged 
without mercy. 

Cromwell was now engaged in storming all the 
fortified towns on the Suir; and at Clonmel, where he 
himself led the attack, he met with a resistance simply 
unparalleled in the campaign. Hugh O’Neil and 
2,000 of his clan defended the breach for four hours, 
‘and then retired unmolested on the other side. This 
brave fellow afterwards joined the number of those 
who availed themselves of the permission to emigrate 
with all their followers. 45,000 men left Ireland for 
Spain, France, and Poland, where they did good ser- 
vice, and by their departure helped to obtain peace 
for a considerable portion of their native isle. 

The Lieutenant-General was just preparing to take 
Waterford, when he was recalled by repeated letters 
from London. On January 8th the Parliament gave 
him the command against Scotland, as Fairfax ob- 
jected to this post. But in consequence of adverse 


84 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


winds, the despatch only reached him on March 22nd. 
Even then he thought he was doing more good in 
Ireland, but a second summons decided him. He 
appointed his fiery son-in-law, Ireton, as his deputy, 
he being already president of Munster, for there was 
still much to do; as Limerick, Athlone, Galway, and 
Sligo still held out, besides Waterford and many more 
similar centres of Irish nationality. Then he went on 
board the frigate ‘ President,” and reached London 
on May 3lst, where he was received with the honours 
and acclamations due to a hero. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


SUBJUGATION OF SCOTLAND. 


DEATH OF IRETON.—-END OF THE IRISH WAR. TRANS- 
PLANTATION OF NATIVES.—EXECUTION OF MONTROSE. 
— CHARLES II. SIGNS THE COVENANT,—SUBJUGATION 
OF SCOTLAND. — MUSSELBURGH. — DUNBAR. — WOR- 
CESTER.—GENERAL MONK REDUCES STIRLING CASTLE 
AND DUNDEE. 





ROMWELL had by no means finished with Ire- 

‘ land; but one thing he had certainly accom- 
plished: the Anglican religion was firmly established ; 
and, in spite of strong Royalistic tendencies, the 
country was so closely united to the Commonwealth, 
that there was no fear of a relapse in that quarter; on 
the contrary, the union with the Sister Isle was more 
firmly cemented than it had ever been before. It 
was indeed this one man, with whose awful name the 
Irish mother still quiets her crying babe, whose 
memory clings to many a mouldering ruin, who first 
drew the lines which guided his successors in their 
upheaval of the whole country, and who sowed the 
seeds which were shortly to bear such tremendous 
fruit. It would be unjust not to mention some of 
these results here, although individual reforms were 


86 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


only carried out by the Parliamentary statutes of the 
following year. 

Ireton had extended the conquest as far as the 
Shannon, when he died of fever at Limerick, on 
November 26th, 1651. Ludlow, who by Cromwell’s 
orders had been by his side for months, then took the 
command until the arrival of Fleetwood. The latter 
eventually married Ireton’s widow, Cromwell’s daughter 
Bridget. When Ulster and Connaught, who made a 
brave fight for it, had been subjugated, and Galway 
taken, the Parliament declared the campaign at an end 
on September 27th, 1652. It had been the same 
story all along. An army of, at the most, 30,000 
men, had to divide itself into endless sections, to be 
here, there, and everywhere, and besiege several 
places at once. A desperate and unyielding foe was 
met by religious zeal and cruelty combined. In some 
official documents, only lately made accessible, it is 
stated how the troops were provided, not only with 
arms, but also with Bibles, and sickles for cutting 
down the green corn, thus destroying the nourishment 
of entire districts. But in trying to cut through the 
very arteries of the rebellion by the extermination of 
agriculture and the peasants’ stock of cattle, the con- 
querors only created exceptionally hard conditions for 
themselves. How could the scanty income derived 
from Ireland, amounting to barely £200,000, maintain 
an army requiring more than £500,000 for its support? 
When the insurrection was quelled in Leinster and 
Ulster, and the soldiers began themselves to till the 
ground so as to obtain bread, it was suggested to 
pay them with allotments of land in the vast depopu- 
lated districts. Ever since the reigns of Elizabeth 


SUBJUGATION OF SCOTLAND. &7 


and James I., thrifty Scotch and English farmers had 
been encouraged by the government in cultivating 
tracts of ground in Ireland. 

Whether Major Wildman, one of the most frantic 
enthusiasts, or James Harrington, author of the politi- 
cal allegory “Oceana,” first unfolded this plan to 
_ Cromwell, anyhow, it was proposed to regenerate Ire- 
land bya military colony, composed of elements hitherto 
entirely irresistible. And when the skirmishes became 
less and less frequent—when the bravest of the Irish 
were fighting on the Continent for or against the great 
Condé ; when the worst insurgents, including scores of 
women and children, had been shipped off to the planta- 
tions at Barbadoes, and only a few bands of Tories 
remained among the wild moors and bogs—then only 
was the decisive Act of Parliament proclaimed through- 
out Ireland, amid the flourish of trumpets and the 
beating of drums. For staunch Papists, and native 
landowners who had abetted the horrors of 1641, 
there was simply no mercy. The less guilty ones got 
off with the loss of their property, to make up for 
which two-thirds of their number were allowed to 
take possession of the barren moors and rocky hills 
of Connaught, where, bounded by the sea on one side 
and the military on the other, they were pretty safe 
to keep the peace. All labourers, workmen, and 
peasants in general, were neither to be exiled nor 
annihilated ; for the Puritans, who had great faith in 
their new military aristocracy and the religious dis- 
cipline of their troops, hoped to convert them, to 
assimilate them to themselves, and thus make human 
beings of men who were more like animals. Apart 
from the “ transplantation” in three out of the four 


88 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


provinces, the troops were regularly parcelled out in 
regiments and companies. 

Nevertheless, there is no denying that, in spite of 
these laws, the Irish of all classes were treated with 


cruelty and injustice, and that the relations between - -- 


officers and men were by no means so amicable as is 
stated in the reports. The privates in particular were 
very fond of selling their allotments to their superiors, 
thus damaging the prospects of the new colony. 
Still, much was done during the Protectorate to put 
this great idea into execution, and results were at- 
tained which cannot be denied, even by the bitterest 
antagonists. Neither Lord Clarendon, who wrote 
the history of the great rebellion, nor Prendergast, a 
modern historian to whom we are indebted for the 
documents respecting this extraordinary colonization, 
can make good the assertion that Cromwell wished 
bodily to exterminate the Irish race. On the contrary, 
both one and the other are forced to admit, that as 
long. as this arrangement was not tampered with, it 
bore excellent fruit. The attempt was crushed all too 
soon by the Restoration in 1660, when the historical 
curse, which an avenging angel tried to avert, again 
descended upon the country. Still, Puritanism never 
quite died out in Ireland, and probably there are even 
now many people who agree with a certain sergeant, 
exiled in 1662, who declared that Cromwell should have 
been left alone, for that he was the best man who had 
ever reigned in the three kingdoms, either king, prince, 
or anybody else. 

But enough of this. Cromwell knew that he had 
firmly united the Emerald Isle to Great Britain, when 
he hastened back to make equally sure of Scotland. 


SUBJUGATION OF SCOTLAND. 89 


A month earlier the Marquis of Montrose had en- 
deavoured to raise the Royal Standard, counting on 
Royalist connections in Holland, Germany, and Italy, 
and in consequence of this brave attempt was executed 
for high treason. The stern adherents of the Cove- 
nant, who were entirely in the hands of their ministers, 
looked with suspicion on any transaction with people 
who thought differently from themselves, and since 
the fall of Hamilton they had increased considerably. 
They continued to persecute the malıgnants, but, 
founding their sovereignty on the Bible, persisted in 
their wish of uniting King and Covenant. Conse- 
quently they not only proclaimed Charles II. king im- 
mediately after his father’s execution, but never rested 
until he actually arrived in Scotland, about the end of 
June, 1650, and acceded to their request with as good 
a grace as he could command. He thus learned the 
art of dissimulation very early, and in the present 
case his object was to incite his supporters in England 
and Ireland. So he submitted to the demands of the 
Scots and signed the treaty, binding himself to take 
the Scottish Covenant, and the Solemn League and 
Covenant, to reform the Church of England according 
to the plan devised by the Assembly of Divines at 
Westminster, and never to allow the exercise of the 
Catholic religion in Ireland or in any other part of his 
dominions. The Presbyterians thus had an eye to all 
three nations, but now acted in direct opposition to 
the Independent party, which had hitherto shared the 
same biblical opinions, but had ended by outgrowing 
all ecclesiastical authority, tolerated all forms of 
religion except Catholicity, and had, in England, be- 
come a regular military republic. 


90 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


To meet the challenge of a party so nearly related 
yet so intrinsically different, the Independents sum- 
moned their powerful supporter, who had not his 
equal in the North. The Scots had for some time 
been watching his iron policy in Ireland. The reports 
of his defeat or death were always eagerly credited. 
Fairfax had for some time disapproved of the turn 
matters were taking in religion, and, incited by his 
Presbyterian wife, he withdrew from public life alto- 
gether. On June 26th Cromwell was appointed Lord- 
General and Commander-in-Chief over all the troops 
of the Commonwealth of England. On the 29th he 
was already in the North, to take the command of an 
army of 16,345 men, being supported by Major- 
General Lambert, his cousin Whalley, and other Inde- 
pendent colonels. 

How can he be called a hypocrite, ıf in these 
anxious days, he found consolation in the 110th Psalm, 
and for asserting that “I have not sought these 
things; truly I have been called to them by the Lord; 
and therefore am not without some assurance that He 
will enable His poor worm and weak servant to do 
His will’?! When he crossed the border at Berwick 
he was preceded by manifestoes, according to custom: 
Declaration, “To all that are Saints and Partakers of 
the Faith of God’s Electin Scotland,” and Proclamation, 
“To the People of Scotland.” But they were not 
issued in the General’s name; and the troops, denying 
all responsibility, declared their affection for their 
fellow- Christians, while pitying their fatal adhesion to 
Charles Stuart. They boasted that in suppressing 
the monarchy they were only fulfilling the true spirit 


* “ Cromwell's Letters and Specches,” part vi., letter exxxlv. 


SUBJUGATION OF SCOTLAND. 91 


of the Covenant. The Scots retorted in virtuous in- 
dignation ; and to show how much they were in earnest, 
once more made the young King, who hated them in 
his heart, swear to fulfil the most humiliating condi- 
tions. They had thoroughly purified their army, and, 
entrenched behind the rocky heights of Edinburgh, 
right down to the coast of Leith, they believed them- 
selves fully equal to the advancing dissenters. Crom- 
well, who had pitched his camp at Musselburgh on 
the 29th, tried in vain to reduce this stronghold. In 
fact, David Lesly, in protecting the capital and the 
important pass of Stirling, covered the whole of Scot- 
land. A lively correspondence was carried on between 
the two zealous armies, but it proved perfectly futile, 
though Cromwell himself took part in ıt. In his 
answer to a solemn Declaration from the Scots, he said 
that it was no part of his business to hinder any of 
them from worshipping God as they liked, but that he 
simply could not understand how they could wish to 
impose the King upon the English, as “ the Satisfac- 
tion of God’s People in both Nations,” and declare in 
the same breath that they disowned the malignants. 
“Tf the state of your quarrel be thus, upon which as 
you say, you resolve to fight our Army, you will have 
opportunity to do that; else what means our abode 
here?”! Lesley naturally did not oblige him by 
coming out, though Cromwell attacked him alternately 
from the east, from the south (from the slopes of the 
Pentland Hiils), from the west, and again from the 
east. The whole of August was spent in useless 
skirmishes; and, owing to the barrenness of the country, 
illness among the troops, and difficulty of nursing the 


1 « Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part vi., letter cxxxvil. 


92 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


sick on board the ships anchored outside the Forth, 
Cromwell was forced to return to Dunbar on Septem- 
ber Ist. The enemy speedily followed in hot pursuit, 
and, but for the darkness, Cromwell’s cavalry would 
have got decidedly the worst of it at Haddington. 

So there he was, with his exhausted, hungry men, 
on that rocky, wave-beaten coast, just then visited by 
the most awful gales. The Scottish army, consisting 
of 23,000 men, and the Committees of the Kirk and 
Estates, not only occupied the heights of Lammer- 
moor in thesouth, but had also cut off the only available 
road along the coast over the Cockburns path. Ina 
letter to Sir Arthur Haselrigg, dated September 2nd, 
Cromwell speaks very calmly of his critical position, 
and then adds: “ And indeed we have much hope in 
the Lord, of whose mercy we have had large experi- 
ence.” Hope ever shone to this brave heart, like a 
guiding beacon. 

For some time the Scots could not make up their 
minds whether to let their enemies beat an ignominious 
retreat, and then pursue them into Engla.d, or whether 
to destroy them on the spot. Their ministers decided 
for the latter, as the foe seemed to be delivered unto 
them, like Agag the Amalekite into the hands of Saul. 
On the evening of September 2nd, Cromwell, who had 
just finished a hasty meal at Dunbar, saw the motion 
in the Scottish camp,as they endeavoured to strengthen 
their right wing, which was nearest the sea, by moving 
the cavalry from the left. With incomparable sharp- 
sightedncss, he at once saw the possibility of pushing 
in between the right and left wings, the position of 
the latter being somewhat weak and isolated. Quite 
independently Lambert had made the same observation. 


SUBJUGATION OF SCOTLAND. 93 


Monk and the rest of the officers joyfully agreed. Now 
whoever made the first attack would have to cross the 
bottom of the valley, where the Brocksburn divided 
the two armies, and naturally everything depended 
upon this. The success of Cromwell’s men was not 
so much due to the strategical superiority of their 
leaders, as to their own unquenchable enthusiasm ; and 
though they were not excited by fanatical preachers, 
they lost nothing of their ardour, and kept their guns 
ın readiness and their powder dry. During the nicht 
the Scotch sentries dropped asleep, and even let their 
matchlocks out, while among the English told off for 
the attack, some cornet or horseman prayed impres- 
sively in the midst of the howling gale. 

The armies were so far apart, that the attack had to 
be postponed till six o’clock in the morning. But as 
soon as the artillery began to thunder against the left 
wing of the Scots, the attack became mutual, the 
English crying “ The Lord of Hosts!” and the Scots 
“The Covenant!” The Scotch cavalry first crossed 
the ravine, but was received by the unerring fire of 
Cromwell’s infantry, while his horsemen dashed into the 
midst, and after a sharp fight, entirely routed the strong 
right wing. That decided the battle, and the sun 
rising on September 8rd found the Scots flying in all 
directions, some making straight for Dunbar, and some 
for the capital across Haddington. Cromwell’s regi- 
ments called a halt to breathe their horses, and then 
the Lord-General himself intoned the 117th Psalm, 
like some modern Gideon or David, to whom the living 
God of the Old Testament, who destroyed his enemies 
by the sword, was a real and infinitely powerful Being. 
According to Cromwell's dispassionate account of the 


94 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


battle to Lenthall, the English army, of 7,500 foot and 
3,500 horse, killed 3,000 of the enemy, who boasted 
twice their number, took 10,000 prisoners, besides 
capturing all their guns and baggage. He adds a 
few words in favour of those who are “the chariots 
and horsemen of Israel,” and ends with a warning 
against the proceedings of the Scotch ministers, who, 
“meddling with worldly policies and mixtures of 
earthly power, . . . . neglected the Word of God, 
the sword of the Spirit.” 

While his advanced guard was scouring the country 
towards Edinburgh, Cromwell wrote to Haselrigg, 
arranging for the humane treatment of the numerous 
prisoners, and at the same time asking for speedy 
reinforcements. He even found time to send a few 
affectionate words to his wife, and a joyful message 
to Ireton, who had lately been equally successful in 
Ireland, having at length reduced Waterford, Dun- 


cannon, and Carlow. On the 7th of that month ho 


moved to Edinburgh, which had to follow Leith’s 
example, and open its gates after such a victory; 
although the castle, where the most fanatical of the 
preachers had taken refuge, held out for some time 
longer. Then Uromwell entered into a controversy 
with the governor of the castle; and now made an 
attack upon the Protestants, as he had done on the 
Catholics the year before. There could have been 
no truth in the report, that he tried to stop the 
preaching of the Gospel. But the howls from the 
pulpits, and the debasement of all civil authority pro- 
ceeding from the same quarter, were not to be endured. 


' “ Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part vi.,letter cxli. 


SUBJUGATION OF SCOTLAND. 95 


“ When ministers pretend to a glorious Reformation ; 
and lay the foundations thereof in getting to themselves 
worldly power; and can make worldly mixtures to 
accomplish the same, such as their late agreement 
with their King ; and hope by him to carry on their 
design, they may know that the Sion promised will 
not be built with such untempered mortar.” ! 

On another occasion he says: “I appeal to their 
consciences, whether any person trying their doctrines 
and dissenting, shall not incur the censure of Sectary ? 
And what is this but to deny Christians their liberty, 
and assume the Infallible Chair?”? As the Inde- 
pendents looked upon religion as merely secondary to 
politics, they considered ordination useful, but by no 
means necessary, for every believer who was moved by 
the Spirit, could interpret the scriptures and pray to 
the Lord on his own account. At first a deaf ear 
was turned to the General’s protestations ; and while 
he was vainly reconnoitring about Stirling, and gave 
the inhabitants “ free leave and liberty to come to the 
army, and to the city and town,” the Presbyterian 
ministers persisted in their resistance on the Castle 
Rock, even when the Derby miners were set to work 
with a view of blowing them up. 

Meanwhile he could not but observe how much the 
divisions among the Scots had gained ground since 
their defeat. The extreme Covenanters in the west 
were daggers drawn, not only with the Royalists, but 
also with Argyle’s party, just then in the ascendant. 
Their frantic clerical leaders declared that the wrath 


1 «Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,’ part vi., letter 
exlvil. 
* Thid., part vi., letter cxlviil. 


96 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


of Heaven had been kindled by their too hasty ac- 
knowledgment of a not sufficiently penitent King. 
They would neither give him to the English, nor sub- 
mit to an aristocratic government themselves. Their 
“Western Army,” of 5,000 men, under Colonels Ker 
and Strahan, was quite independent of Lesley and his 
party. This was quite enough to induce Cromwell to 
attempt communications with these western colonels. 
He thought certain symptoms in this dissolution 
pointed to the strength of the Divine Will over the 
hearts of the faithful. But neither a march to Glas- 
cow, nor a discussion with Ker and Strahan, produced 
the desired result. On December Ist, however, a 
grey winter’s morning, General Lambert routed their 
troops near Hamilton on the Clyde, and only a few in- 
dividuals, Strahan among the number, openly joined 
the English Republicans. It was just this defection 
of the west, which was in favour of a truce between 
Argyle and the Royalists, who, while entrenched at 
Stirling, had crowned Charles II. King, at Scone 
Kirk, on January Ist, 1651. Though the majority 
of the people discarded the remonstrance, Argyle’s 
party endeavoured to agree in an interpretation of the 
Covenant which should allow the King to enjoy cer- 
tain privileges. 

By this time Edinburgh Castle, at all events, had 
been reduced. On December 23rd Cromwell found 
something to do in subduing a villanous band of free- 
booters, called “ Moss-troopers,” who had killed some 
of his bravest soldiers ; but, on the whole, he spent the 
winter at Moray House with but few interruptions. 
He was now able to show the softer side of his character. 
The correspondence between himself and his wife 


SUBJUGATION OF SCOTLAND. 97 


shows them both at their best, though the Puritanical 
spirit remains unchanged in every particular. As he 
says somewhat reprovingly to Colonel Hacker, ‘Truly 
I think he that prays and preaches best, will fight 
best.””! 

An official medallist was sent from London to take 
the effigies of the Lord-General for a model, com- 
memorating the victory of Dunbar; but Cromwell 
proposed that, instead of “ my unbeautiful face,” the 
Parliament should be engraved on one side, and an 
army on the other, with the inscription “ The Lord of. 
Hosts.” He would rather have escaped the honour 
and responsibility incurred by the chancellorship of 
the reformed University of Oxford, and very grave 
anxiety was excited by his failing health. Even the 
year before, during the Irish campaign, he had com- 
plained of indisposition. Now, being necessarily ex- 
posed to wind and weather, he was repeatedly prostrated 
by attacks of fever. In a letter to his wife (Sep- 
tember, 1650), he says: “I grow an old man, and feel 
the infirmities of age marvellously stealing on me; ”” 
and in one to the President of the Council of State 
(March, 1651): “I thought to have died of this fit of 
sickness, but the Lord seemeth to dispose otherwise.” ° 
Barely was he restored to health, when he made 
another futile attempt to come to an understand- 
ing with the rebellious spirits in Glasgow. This 
brought on a bad relapse, in consequence of which, 
two first-rate London doctors were dispatched to him, 
giving him leave to return to the milder climate of 


1 « Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part vi., letter clxil. 
? Ibid., part vi., letter cxlii. 
? Ibid., part vi., letter clxx. 

H 


98 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


England. But just at that moment his presence was 
absolutely necessary, as the enemy was alrcady taking 
advantage of his ıllness. 

Not until the end of June could Cromwell start for 
the north-west. A fight near Inverkeithing proved 
the Scottish lines round Stirling Park to be so strong, 
that the attack on the front was discontinued. A 
whole month elapsed before the passage across the 
Forth at Queensferry could be gained, and the forti- 
fied towns on the coast of Fife taken. On August 
2nd, however, Cromwell entered Perth, and the Scots, 
thus attacked in the rear, and cut off from the High- 
lands, started for England in a forced march. In 
desperation they risked their last chance, and crossed 
the border at Carlisle, reckoning on those Royalist 
tendencies which had never been quite uprooted in 
England. A despatch of Cromwell’s, dated August 
Ath, admits that the enemy “is afew days’ march 
before us ;” but there was so much to remind him of 
Preston battle, that he ventured to hope for a similar 
result, and accordingly started in pursuit without 
loss of time. His advanced guard, under Lambert 
and Harrison, soon overtook the enemy at the Bridge 
of Warrington. The Earl of Derby, indeed, came 
over from the Isle of Man, reaching Worcester on 
August 22nd, with a few other loyal nobles, and there 
Charles II. displayed his standard, as nine years before 
his father had done at Nottingham. But the great 
majority of the people had the invasion of 1648 fresh 
in their minds, and were quite unapproachable ; and 
in the counties through which the King had passed, 
the military organization of the Independent Govern- 
ment was at once apparent. On the 28th Cromwell 


SUBJUGATION OF SCOTLAND. 99 


arrıved with 30,000 men, having come in forced 
marches from York, through Nottingham, Stratford, 
and Evesham. 

On September 3rd, the anniversary of Dunbar, his 
superior forces attacked the enemy encamped in and 
about Worcester,—an open town, which had not any- 
thing like the advantages of the position at the Forth. 
A bridge of boats connected the two banks of the 
Severn. The Scots were soon driven back, in spite 
of a most heroic resistance in St. John’s suburb and 
Fort Royal. 3,000 were killed in the streets, and 
7,000 had to surrender. Within five hours all was 
over. Though dead-tired and hardly capable of 
writing, the General composed his first despatch late 
that very evening. Nothing gave him greater satis- 
faction than the way his newly-raised troops equalled 
his old and tried soldiers. The next day he was able 
to describe how the Scots, flying nortl wards, had been 
hotly pursued, and how the whole country rose upon 
them. “I am bold humbly to beg ... . that the 
fatness of these continued mercies may not occasion 
pride and wantonness, as formerly the like hath done 
to a chosen nation.”+ The King escaped to the 
south coast in the most miraculous fashion, and 
managed to reach the Continent in safety, thus once 
more saving the monarchy as represented in his own 
person. A great many northern nobles were made 
prisoners of war, and the confiscation of estates was 
resumed on a large scale. ‘The Earl of Derby ended 
his days on the scaffold, and the hitherto independent 
Isle of Man had to submit to the authority of Eingland. 


1 « Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part vi., letter clxxxin. 


100 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


On September 12th the Lord-General arrived ın 
London, where he met with a most triumphant recep- 
tion. Worcester fight, which was the last battle ın 
which he took a personal part, was a crushing blow to 
the shaky authority of Scotland. Lieutenant-General 
Monk reduced Sirling Castle and Dundee in quick 
succession, having previously dissolved a new Com- 
mittee of Estates at Angus, and sent its members, 
among them the old Lord Leven, off to the Tower. 
The following summer Generals Deane and Lambert 
marched through the Highlands. Our northern king- 
dom was now bound to keep the peace, whether they 
liked it or not, for the hberty of their evangelical faith 
had not been tampered with. But when the ministers 
again began the old story, and when the courts of 
justice refused to pronounce judgment, Monk was 
forced to make short work of them. He would notallow 
the General Assembly to sit, and sent English judges 
to Scotland. A few fortifications at suitable places, 
and a standing force of 7,000 to 8,000 men, sufficed 
to keep in order both the Border and the Highlands, 
and before long the same peace and quiet prevailed 
north of the Tweed as in the south. Edinburgh cer- 
tainly groaned under the severity of the taxes, but the 
common interest in trade and commerce made up for 
much. They wanted to show their gratitude to the 
great organizer by erecting a monument to him in 


Parliament Square, for which an immense block of _ 


stone was intended, which lay for many years after- 
wards on the beach at Leith. 


CHAPTER IX. 


PARLIAMENT SUPERSEDED. 


BLAKE’S NAVAL VICTORIES.—HOLLAND’S JEALOUSY EXCITED. 
—-NAVIGATION ACT.—DUTCH WAR.—LA HOGUE.— 
THE RUMP PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED.—THE LITTLE 
PARLIAMENT. — IT RESIGNS. — INSTRUMENT OF 
GOVERNMENT.—CROMWELL MADE PROTECTOR. 


E have seen how the Puritan Republic con- 
quered the individual resistance of all three 
countries, and always at the very moment when the 
state in question was planning some daring combina- 
tion, whereby it hoped to retain its freedom. Crom- 
well’s system of government, which put an end to all 
political and religious antagonism, naturally dealt a 
severe blow to the independence both of Ireland and 
Scotland, and made the union of the three kingdoms 
much firmer than would ever have been tolerated by 
the dynastic interests of the Stuarts. And now the 
same power, which had but lately broken down the re- 
sistance of the Royalist nobles in Great Britain, and 
combated Popery in Ireland by means of banishment 
to the wildernesses of Connemara, and hard labour in 
the tobacco plantations, also took possession of the 
dominion of the seas, which was indeed an absolute 


102 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


necessity to an insular state like England. The first 
thing to be done was to hunt from its hiding-places 
the squadron which was making the seas dangerous 
under Princes Rupert and Moritz, lately transformed 
from soldiers into Vikings. But the other side could 
also boast of naval heroes who had begun by fighting 
on land, for instance, the incomparäble Robert Blake. 
In spite of the King of Portugal, he drove the Princes 
and their frigates out of the Tagus, destroyed a 
number of their ships in the harbour of Carthagena, 
compelled them to abandon the protecting guns of 
Toulon, and finally constrained them to fly to the 
Azores, the coast of Africa, and the West Indies. 
The last strongholds of the rebels, the Scilly Isles, 
Jersey, and the other Channel Islands, yielded at last 
to Blake and his marine artillery, as the Isle of Man 
and the Irish harbours of Kinsale and Galway had 
yielded before. Neither France, who was fully occu- 
pied with home affairs, nor Spain with its decaying 
navy, dared to assist the Royalists while the Common- 
wealth maintained such a threatening attitude. The 
United Provinces of the Netherlands, on the other 
hand, considered some exaggerated expressions of 
British independence as equivalent to a challenge, and 
so war was declared between the two free states, 
which in some respects so closely resembled one 
another. 

Sir Harry Vane the younger, with his high-flown 
notions, once gave it as his opinion that either we 
must entirely subdue Holland, or else the two republics 
must be united into one, After the assassination 
of Ambassador Dorislaus at the Hague by fugitive 
Cavaliers, the Parliament haughtily insisted that all 


PARLIAMENT SUPERSEDED. 103 


Dutch ships passing through English waters, whether 
bound for the Baltic or the Mediterranean, whether 
fitted out for fishing in the Davis Straits or freighted 
for the Tropics, should strike their ensign in honour 
of the British flag. 

In consequence of these events, the Navigation 
Act was passed on October 9th, 1651, which was 
afterwards taken up by the restored monarchy, 
and has ever since been the palladium and magna 
charta of the navy down to the present time. 
Although inspired by national animosity, this Act 
bore the marks of the coolest deliberation; for, as 
Adam Smith says, “it aimed at the diminution of 
the naval power of Holland, the only naval power 
which could endanger the security of England.”! © 
England undoubtedly held its own in the trade of the 
Baltic, and the factory of the Merchant Adventurers, 
which had hitherto been in the Netherlands, was now 
moved to Hamburg, not only on account of the diffe- 
rences arising from the connection of the houses of 
Stuart and Orange, but so as to ensure a greater 
mercantile independence. The Dutch, on the other 
hand, absolutely monopolised the carrying trade to 
Europe and the East and West Indies. This was all 
the more serious, as at that time the British plantations 
in Virginia and Barbadoes still acknowledged Charles 
II., and dispatched their products exclusively under 
the Dutch flag. ‘ The young Commonwealth of Eng- 
land could not possibly approve of such proceedings, 
and consequently a statute was passed, prohibiting the 
importation of any goods into England, Ireland, or the 


I «The Wealth of Nations,” book iv., ch. ii. 


104 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Colonies, except in ships built in England, belonging 
to English subjects, manned by English captains, and 
with at least a third of the crew consisting of English- 
men. Neither was the importation of Kuropean goods 
into England allowed, except either in English ships 
or in ships of the country where the goods were pro- 
duced. ‘'he idea was to secure the monopoly for the 
English carrying trade, which hitherto had been rather 
looked down upon by our merchants, and also to eman- 
cipate trade from foreign, and more especially Dutch, 
influences. 

The Navigation Act was certainly directly opposed 
to free trade, but at that time protection was more 
needed than prosperity, so its object was attained. 
Even then there was no lack of complaints from the 
English mercantile classes, to the effect that importa- 
tion was cut off, and the freedom of commerce hin- 
dered. But they had to give way to the political 
tendencies of the age, and the Commonwealth de- 
manded that the States-General at the Hague should 
at once put a stop to the proceedings of the Cavaliers, 
while English admirals began to search Dutch vessels 
for contraband articles, regardless of the law: “ The 
flag covers the goods.” By issuing letters of mark 
a number of the enemy’s ships were captured. Their 
respective governments were still negotiating, when 
jealousy drove the two nations into war to fight 
for the great prize, namely, the sovereignty of the 
seas. 

In March, 1652, Sir George Ayscough secured 
Barbadoes for the Commonwealth. In May, even be- 
fore war was declared, Blake and the Dutchman Van 
Tromp, with their respective strong squadrons, met in 


PARLIAMENT SUPERSEDED. 105 


front of the Kentish Downs. How vastly superior the 
Dutch fleet was, as far as mere numbers went, is proved 
by the quantity of richly-laden vessels captured by 
English cruisers in the Baltic, the Bay of Biscay, 
the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean. There were 
several fierce battles in the Channel during the summer, 
and finally, in February, 1653, the battle of La Hogue 
was fought in the broad waters off Portland Bill. 
Both sides suffered severely; but neither Blake, Monk, 
and Deane, nor Tromp, De Ruyter, and De Witt, could 
claim a complete victory. 

Tromp, who warmly supported the House of Orange, 
insulted the British coast by tying a broom to his top- 
mast instead of an ensign; but this could not alter the 
fact that the best ships were built in England, and 
were defended by heavy artillery; and, what was more 
important, the hardy inhabitants of these isles learnt 
many a clever trick in navigation from the enemy. 
This unexpected turn of affairs struck terror even into 
the offices of Amsterdam. Only the English could not 
afford to slacken their efforts, which might easily have 
happened just then, owing to internal disturbances, 
and the immense costs of the war, which were to be met 
by renewed confiscation among the delinquents and 
monthly assessments. 

The Parliament and army between them had indeed 
put an end to the civil war, and had besides firmly 
united the three kingdoms and maintained Hngland’s 
prestige in the eyes of other nations; but,at the same 
time, there seemed to be no chance of bridging over 
the great division among themselves. The Parlia- 
ment, which had made great advances, both in politics 
and religion, wished for an endowed clergy. The 


106 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


lawyers—such as the timid yet obstinate Bulstrode, and 
Oliver St. John and Sir Harry Vane the younger, 
both of whom were entirely wrapped up in Repub- 
lican ideas—were the only people who had any in- 
fluence, and they made no attempt to check the 
bribery that went on in the courts of justice, nor 
could they prevent the civil administrators from di- 
viding the confiscated lands among their own greedy 
cousins. But endless remonstrances against these 
abuses were sent to the troops and their officers, 
who were pretty universally acknowledged as the 
champions of popular rights. The chief demand was 
the dissolution of the Rump itself, of whose 150 mem- 
bers, only about fifty ever appeared at all—a clique 
which was perfectly unbearable in the long run. 

Since the spring of 1649 a special committee headed 
by Vane had been debating about new statutes and 
election laws, but nothing came of it, because the 
members all wanted to keep their seats under the 
“New Representative,’ or desired, at all events, to be 
replaced by men who were of the same mind as them- 
selves, while the army impatiently demanded an entire 
reconstruction. It was only after Cromwell’s return 
from Scotland that it was decided “by a neck-and-neck 
division” that a limit should be fixed beyond which 
the Parliament should not sit, namely, November 38rd, 
1654, and he was wont to express himself pretty freely 
about their ‘ injustice, self-interest, and other faults.” 
Meanwhile the feuds in the debates continued, for the 
Parliamentarians considered themselves regents ; and 
asthe navy, whose principles were chiefly Presbyterian, 
willingly submitted to them, they demanded the same 
from the army. It was hardly to be expected that 


PARLIAMENT SUPERSEDED. 107 


this tremendous instrument of the revolution should 
resign its claims, as well as its demand for a New 
Representative and the establishment of a supreme 
authority, such as the troops desired. A good deal of 
excitement prevailed among the people during the 
conferences on this subject in the autumn of 1652. 
Several officers of high standing, however, such as 
General Lambert, who had distinguished himself in 
the field more than any other, excepting Cromwell, 
and that fiery enthusiast Colonel Harrison, implored 
the Lieutenant-General to put an end to the business 
for good and all, as he alone possessed sufficient in- 
fluence and authority to take such a step. 

But even Cromwell himself had grave scruples 
about the overthrow of a power which for centuries 
had been part and parcel of the nation, and for which, 
not long since, all the country had fought against the 
King; but he was driven to it at last by the persistent 
obstinacy of the Parliament. On the evening of 
April 19th a conference was held in the General’s 
house at Whitehall, between about twenty leading 
members of Parliament and as many officers. Nothing 
came of it, however; and the next morning, April 20th, 
1653, Cromwell proceeded to the House, clad like the 
rest, in plain black clothes and grey stockings. But 
he had taken military precautions beforehand, having . 
informed his officers, that though the Lord had helped 
them hitherto, both in peace and war, it would be 
tempting Providence to allow such a Parliament to 
continue in power. 

For some time he listened to the debate in silence, 
until the question was put “that this Bill do now pass.” 
Then he rose, and his calm opening sentences were 


108 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


soon followed by passionate accusations. When one 
of the members (Sir Peter Wentworth) expressed his 
surprise at such language, he could contain himself no 
longer. As he afterwards said to the officers, “ Per- 
ceiving the Spirit of God so strong upon me, I would 
no longer consult flesh and blood.” “ Clapping on his 
hat,” and occasionally “ stamping the floor with his 
feet,” he exclaimed: “I will put an end to your 
prating.” He told them God had put a limit to their 
proceedings, and that they were “no Parliament,” 
and should give place to better men. Then some 
twenty or thirty musketeers entered to clear the House 
without more ado, while Colonel Harrison conducted 
Speaker Lenthall down from his seat. Cromwell him- 
self took possession of the Bill, and had the gold mace, 
the symbol of Parliamentary authority, together with 
the key of the House, taken to his own dwelling. He 
well knew the risk he had run, and for that reason 
again swore in his loyal supporters who stood by him 
that same afternoon when he dissolved the equally 
rebellious town council. Curiously enough, the other 
pillar of the state, the navy, just then engaged in 
beating the Dutch, made no resistance whatever. 
Blake himself, though no Republican, intimated to his 
captains that they had nothing to do with internal 
politics, and it was a clever move of Cromwell’s to 
have placed his staunch adherent General Monk in the 
midst of them. 

Whether rightly or wrongly, since April 20th the 
Lord-General was the only man who possessed any 
authority. A few days later he exercised it without 
hesitation, when the draining of the Fens, which had 
been carried on uninterruptedly in his native county, 


PARLIAMENT SUPERSEDED. 109 


was interfered with by a lot of unruly persons. At 
the same time, it was necessary to form a new Parlia- 
ment as quickly as possible, and to establish a repre- 
sentative, as desired by the municipal authorities ; for 
the army and its council of officers could not be 
allowed to monopolise supreme authority for good and 
all. Among the troops the wish prevailed, and was 
encouraged by such men as Harrison, for a representa- 
tive of those godly enthusiasts, who had hitherto been 
the leaven of the army. The end of it all was a 
singular assembly, consisting of 144 members, among 
whom were six for Ireland, and five for Scotland, all 
carefully selected from the most zealous ‘‘ Sectaries,” 
by anxious “ consultation of the godly clergy in their 
respective counties.’ This was the ‘ Barebones 
Parliament,’ so called after the godly leather-seller 
Praisegod Barbone, one of the members for London. 
The 4th of July was appointed by letter of summons 
“for the meeting of persons called to the Supreme 
Authority,” and on that day, in the Council-chamber 
at Whitehall (not in the ancient hall of St. Stephen’s) , 
Cromwell, standing by the table surrounded by his 
officers, opened the sitting by a long speech in his 
own peculiar style. Having apologized for the heat 
and the smallness of the room, he recalled the mighty 
events of late years, and the circumstances which had 
made it a duty to put a limit to the preceding Parlia- 
ment, and entrust the government of the Common- 
wealth to worthier hands. The Lord had invested 
them with the highest authority, and made a tool of 
the sword, which would not turn against them. ‘The 
solemn words of the Old Testament, in which the orator 
revelled, found an echo in the hearts of an assembly 


110 OLIVER CROMWELII. 


of saints, such as there has not been another, either 
before or since. They received the Spirit of God like 
a congregation of Quakers, and took in hand the re- 
form of the laws in the three kingdoms. 

Now these men thought to replace the tottering 
foundations of the old law by entirely new regulations, 
according with their religious socialism. They began 
by an attempt to abolish the Court of Chancery, and 
by instituting radical changes in the statutes, especially 
regarding the punishment of crime. As Milton had 
already expounded in a pamphlet, marriage was to 
them merely a domestic arrangement. They con- 
demned duelling, and the taking of an oath, not having 
any idea of the feeling of honour which had prevailed 
until then ; and according to the manner of extreme 
fanatics of all ages, they were equally hard on eccle- 
siastical perferment and the payment of tithes. Every- 
thing of the kind was to be straightway abolished, and 
the charges on the estates mercilessly suppressed, even 
when they had long ago become private property. But 
this caused a dissension between the assembly and its 
own Tithes-Committee, which began to have some mis- 
givings. Their “ Report,” recommending that, instead 
of suppressing the tithes, the livings should only be 
given to worthier persons, was, after much serious de- 
bating, rejected by a majority of two on December 
10th. 

An assembly of the Levellers, or, as they were called, 
fifth- Monarchy Men,threatened to become a common- 
wealth of Anabaptists and Communists. But on the 
other hand, their meetings opened men’s eyes to the 
fact to what an extent the revolution had progressed. 
People might well ask themselves, whether the mighty 


PARLIAMENT SUPERSEDED. 111 


man who had once professed the very principles 
current in thatassembly, who had only lately dissolved 
the Parliament because its members were shamefully 
wrapped up in self-interest, and cared little for the 
good of the Commonwealth,—whether he would con- 
tinue or check this universal levelling spirit? But as 
on two former occasions, he bravely set his face against 
what he knew to be an evil, and stood up for the in- 
terests of Church and Law, which he could not but 
acknowledge as the pillars of society. In fact, as 
commander-in-chief of the army he simply could not 
act otherwise, for the civic saints, who considered 
themselves the real regents, objected to the high 
assessments for maintaining the troops. And but for 
regular pay, what would have become of the discipline 
of the only organization capable of maintaining internal 
peace and external respect ? It was out of the ques- 
tion that the authorities, whether officers or lawyers, 
should associate with fanatics, who anticipated the 
reign of Christ upon earth. Luckily the majority 
was a very small one, and the rest supported the 
authorities. 

On December 12th the proposition was carried, 
“That the sitting of this Parliament any longer as 
now constituted will not be for the good of the Com- 
monwealth, and that, therefore, it is requisite to 
deliver up unto the Lord-General Cromwell the 
powers which we have received from him.” Where- 
upon the Speaker, preceded by the mace, and followed 
by his friends, proceeded at once to Whitehall, and 
presented the resignation to the Lord-General. They 
were joined by all who had shared their opinions, 
while troops of soldiers cleared the house. 


112 OLIVER CROMWELZ. 


So this experiment had also failed. Can it be sup- 
posed that Cromwell foresaw this, or that a boundless 
ambition made him wish for sucha result? Incredible 
surely, for with every fresh turn of events the dilemma 
only got worse for him. And who dare impugn the 
veracity of a letter to Fleetwood, in Ireland, in which 
he says: “ My hfe has been a willing sacrifice,—and 
I hope—for them all” ?* Hitherto he had given way 
to Harrison, himself one of the “ Saints,” but now he 
turned to General Lambert and those officers who, 
boasting no extreme opinions, were soldiers pure and 
simple, and did not object to the establishment of 
a military goverment, which alone promised any per- 
manent strength. 

The very day after the dissolution, the so-called 
“ Instrument of Government,” consisting of forty-two 
articles, was read before a rather stormy meeting, com- 
posed mainly of officers, and a few days later the result 
was made known to the public. The most important 
article was the one naming Cromwell Lord Protector 
of the Commonwealth of England, Ireland, and Scot-. 
land,—a title not altogether unprecedented in English 
history, for m the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
the regents of infant kings had, on several occasions, 
called themselves protectors. This certainly gave 
him supreme authority, but it was by no means un- 
limited. For his motions were to be regulated by 
a very independent Council of State, which was to 
assist him in matters of peace and war, in raising 
means for the latter, in imposing taxes and making 
laws, until the time should come when the nation 


* “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part vii., letter clxxxix. 


PARLIAMENT SUPERSEDED. 113 


should be represented by a united Parliament, which 
should assume entire legislative power. He himself 
declared the acceptance to be a necessary safety mea- 
sure. The title of Protector quite corresponded with 
his own ideas, for it saved England from the gaping 
abyss of another social revolution. Without any effort 
on his part, civil authority was thrust upon him, just as 
military authority had been before. 

On December 16th the ceremony of installation 
took place at Westminster Hall. Surrounded by the 
officers and members of the Council of State, and by 
the municipal authorities in their robes of office, 
Cromwell sat in the Chair of State, his strong, thick- 
set figure, surmounted by a face not indeed handsome, 
with its coarse features and ruddy-fair complexion, but 
possessing a powerful and massive forehead, over- 
shadowed by light-brown hair streaked with grey. 
The Protector was plainly dressed in blac velvet, and 
wore a gold band round his hat. General Lambert 
then begged him to accept the new office in the name 
of the army and the three nations, and the “ Instru- 
ment of Government” was again read, after which 
Cromwell swore to observe the forty-two articles con- 
tained in it, and in a short address expressed a hope 
that he might only retain his power so long as he was 
furthering the work of God. He then put on his hat, 
and seating himself in the chair, received the great 
seal from the Commissioners and the sword from the 
Lord Mayor. 

The Council of State, without whose approval he 
could do nothing, consisted at first of fifteen eminent 
men,among whom were the most distinguished oflicers, 
as well as Viscount Lisle, Lord Montague of Hinchin- 

I 


114 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


brook, and Ashley Cooper (better known as Lord 
Shaftesbury). These gentlemen had the privilege of 
electing the next Protector, and had to swear, amongst 
other things, that they would not be influenced by any 
personal considerations. All members of the House of 
Stuart were of course excluded, for the legitimate 
monarchy had been completely ousted by the usurpa- 
tion. Among the many trustworthy and conscientious 
men occupying public places, John Thurloe, who had 
once accompanied St. John to Holland, was Secretary 
of State, and John Milton, in spite of almost total 
blindness, conducted the correspondence in Latin with 
foreign powers. 

The Royalists, whose prospects, both within and 
without, had been none of the brightest for some time 
past, were naturally very wrath at the confiscation 
of their estates. As early as February, 1654, they 
were detected in a plot. And when Charles promised 
£500 to him who should rid him of Oliver Cromwell, 
the Protector had to be on his guard against attempts 
on his life. The religious fanatics, who had thought 
their fondest hopes were about to be realized, were 
equally indignant. Who exercised far more arbi- 
trary authority than ever the late King had done? 
Who dissolved the Parliament by calling in the 
soldiers, while Charles had but singled out five 
members’ Who undermined all civic authority by 
means of an armed force? The fury of the Anabap- 
tists found vent in the most gloomy prophecies, accord- 
ing to which the fate of this evil-doer was to be worse 
than that of Protector Somerset, or hunchbacked 
Richard of Gloucester, who had had his royal nephews 
murdered. Fiery Harrison, the most attractive figure 


PARLIAMENT SUPERSEDED. 115 


in this group, had to be dismissed the service and re- 
stricted to his native town. Cromwell’s position of 
authority necessitated the dismissal of about 150 
godly officers ; in fact, he carefully cleared the army of 
the very element which had once constituted its power. 
The Parliamentary Republicans, on the other hand, held 
together merely because there was a Parliament in pros- 
pect. But the clergy and all the legal professions, 
indeed everyone who had to work for his living, looked 
with favour on the new arrangement. That is why the 
first negotiations and propositions in the name of 
“ Olivarius Protector”? (thus ran the formula) kept 
these influential classes well in view. ‘The courts of 
justice were not tampered with, and were entrusted to 
the most impartial men. A general visitation of the 
churches was preceded by a central committee of 
worthy clergy and laity, while a secular commission was 
appointed in each county for the purpose of replacing 
all unworthy and inefficient servants of the Word 
by more deserving men. On April 14th the Pro- 
tector moved to Whitehall, where he continued to re- 
side with his family and household. On Saturday 
evenings he was wont to drive down to Hampton 
Court for a little relaxation, and on these occasions he 
was always surrounded by his guards. His life was 
continually in danger, both from within and without, 
but he was still the only hope of England. 


CHAPTER X. 
CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 


GROWTH OF THE NAVY.—CROMWELL’S FOREIGN POLICY.-— 
ELECTION OF THE NEW PARLIAMENT.—ITS DISSOLU- 
TION BY CROMWELL AFTER FIVE MONTHS.—ROYALIST 
PLOTS.—THE MAJOR-GENERALS.—INCREASE OF RE- 
LIGIOUS LIBERTY.—MEETING BETWEEN FOX AND CROM- 
WELL.—THE JEWS ADMITTED INTO ENGLAND AFTER 
400 YEARS OF BANISHMENT. | 


BOUT this time the rest of the world began to 
feel the influence of Uromwell’s mighty arm. 

The establishment of the Commonwealth in England 
had at first only excited the derision and indignation 
both of Spain and the Netherlands, and the revolu- 
tionary British Isles were in danger of becoming 
entirely isolated with regard to other European powers, 
but before long the latter had every reason to respect 
the red cross on a white ground. Though the English 
fleet had long been renowned, and though the recent 
victories over Holland were due to the Presbyterian 
convictions of the nation and the self-sacrificing devo- 
tion of Republican statemen hke Sir Harry Vane, still, 
from a political point of view, we owed our success to 
afar superior head. In the same way it was he who 
enlisted Sweden in his favour, that Protestant power 


peperenenenes 


CROMWETL AS PROTECTOR. Lie 


created by Gustavus Adolphus. Not only did Crom- 
well venture to send his portrait to Christina, the great 
King’s daughter, but sent an ambassador in the person 
of Bulstrode Whitlocke, a naturally timid man, who 
accommodated himself to existing circumstances, but 
deserves some credit for preserving the old traditional 
rights. By this step the thin edge of the wedge was 
introduced into foreign politics at Stockholm. Crom- 
well succeeded in frustrating the proposed alliance of 
Holland with Denmark and France, and after a severe 
defeat of their navy, the United Provinces at last 
agreed to peaceable negotiations. And how much did 
not England gain by the treaty of April 15th, 1654! 
The haughty Dutch had to humble themselves so far 
as to salute the flag of the three kingdoms in all 
British seas, besides paying damages and submitting 
to the check which the Navigation Act put upon their 
trade, thereby tacitly admitting the equality and ulti- 
mate superiority of British commerce. 

Cromwell had to contend both with the Republican 
opponents of the army and the supporters of the navy 
at home, while abroad he was confronted by the Houses 
of Stuart and Orange; but by excluding the young 
Prince of Orange (William III.) from the office of 
Stadtholder, he not only drove Charles II. and his 
followers out of the Hague, but likewise delivered 
himself and the States-General from the House of 
Orange. In this respect Cromwell and Jan De Witt 
had a political object in common; and consequently, 


after a most bitter war, the two Commonwealths 


became quite amicably disposed towards one another, 
although only a few idealists in the Barebones Parlıa- 
ment could ever dream that they would become one 


118 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


nation. As Denmark was included in the general 
peace, and the agreement with Sweden was sealed by 
the coronation of Charles Gustavus, not only had the 
British merchantmen access to the Sound, but England 
became the centre of the great Northern Protestant 
Union. The rival powers of France and Spain began 
to solicit the favour of the hated usurper. Having at 
last made peace with his neighbours, and confiding in 
the unity of opinion among his allies, he was now 
able to turn his attention to the contemplated Parlia- 
ment. 

The writs for the new Parliament, sent out in the 
name of the Protector, laid particular stress on the 
fact that the authority of a “ single person ” and the 
Parliament was no longer to be called in question, 
and that executive and legislative power would now 
be entirely distinct. These were the first fresh 
elections for fourteen years, but the same order was 
maintained as in the Long Parliament before its dis- 
solution, namely, 400 members—250 for the counties, 
thirty for Scotland, thirty for Ireland, and the rest for 
the towns. Every member must have an income of 
at least £200, and malignants alone were excluded. 
So Presbyterians and Separatists were in the majority. 
Besides the officers and other dignitaries, there was 
many an old acquaintance of decidedly Parliamentarian 
and even Republican principles. 

On Sunday, September 3rd, that day when the 
Lord had, on two occasions, had compassion on the 
people, the session was opened by a solemn prayer at 
the Abbey, where the Protector proceeded in state 
from Whitehall. The next day, after more prayers, 
Cromwell appeared in the Painted Chamber, where he 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 119 


seated himself in a chair of state, with a canopy over 
it, and then rising, he “put off his hat,” and addressed 
the members who sat round him with their heads un- 
covered. He spoke of “the interest of three great 
nations,’ nay, ofall the Christian people in the world,in 
this free Parliament, and gravely told them where their 
predecessors had failed; he reminded them how their 
power was turned into impotence, and how, thanks to 
the treachery of the enemy, they were dragged into a 
war with Portugal and Holland, and very nearly with 
France. He further expounded to them how the 
present government had made peace within and with- 
out, and expressed a hope that neither support nor 
finances would be wanting to conclude the same every- 
where, especially in Ireland. 

But before many days were passed, the old debates 
arose again about “ Parliament and Single Person.” 
It was argued that the people alone possessed supreme 
authority, that the Protectorate did not possess equal 
privileges, but was to be subject to, and dependent 
on, the people, who claimed the right to make laws, 
even in military and clerical matters. As a Parlia- 
ment: in the old sense of the word was out of the 
question for both parties, and the idea of the sove- 
reignty of the people was steadily gaining ground, 
the Parliament began seriously to think of putting ib 
into execution. But how could this be reconciled 
with the power annexed by Cromwell? A feud en- 
sued, which placed the “ Instrument of Government” 
on rather an insecure footing. Consequently, when 
the members arrived on the morning of September 
12th, they found the doors of the House locked and 
guarded with soldiers, and at ten o’clock the Lord 


120 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Protector himself appeared in his state barge, with 
due escort, and taking his place as before in the’ 
Painted Chamber, made a speech lasting an hour and 
a half, but in a very different vein from the last. He 
explained what he considered should be the relations 
between the supreme authority and a free Parliament; 
declared “that he lied not in this matter,” and that 
he was free from all personal ambition; he recalled 
his own past, and the political catastrophes involved 
in it; and finally called the army, the City of London, 
the judges, sheriffs, and the people of the three nations 
to witness, and quoted the returns of the late elections 
as a proof, that his calling was from God, and his 
testimony from the people, and that he could never 
allow it to be tampered with. Then he distinguished 
between fundamental and circumstantial things in the 
establishment, such as no government could be with- 
out. “ In every Government there must be Somewhat 
Fundamental, Somewhat like a Magna Charta which 
should be standing, be unalterable. ..... The 
Government by a Single Person and a Parliament is 
a Fundamental. .... That Parliaments should not 
make themselves perpetual is a Fundamental. .... 
Again, ıs not Liberty of Conscience a Fundamental ? 
... . Another Fundamental which I had forgotten 
is the Militia.””* And he likewise averred that the 
Council of State belonged to the Constitution. He 
declared he would “sooner be willing to be rolled 
into his grave and buried with infamy,” than consent 
to “the wilful throwing away of this Government.” 
Finally, he desired them all to sign the Instrument of 


7 eee vee 
“Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part viii., speech iii. 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 121 


Government, which was the reason of their being 
elected, and to bind themselves to be faithful and 
loyal to the Lord Protector and the Commonwealth of 
the three nations. 

The first day about 140 assented to this, and before 
the month was out the number had increased to 300. 
Among the recusants were the most resolute Repub- 
lıcans, Anabaptists, and a group of officers, who, in a 
counter-declaration, warned the people that by the 
power of militia and the maintenance of a standing 
army, the Protector would become more powerful 
than the King himself, and the power of the Parlia- 
ment of granting or refusing supplies a mere dead 
letter. No wonder it was found absolutely necessary 
to render harmless either by dismissal or imprisonment 
several well-known officers, who, however clever, were 
entirely imbued with fanatical opinions, and altogether 
misunderstood the man to whom they owed their posi- 
tion. But even they who signed the “ Instrument” 
would not give up their right of discussing the points 
which had never been satisfactorily settled throughout 
the civil war, and eagerly seized every opportunity of 
explaining them theoretically. 

The opposition party maintained that the glory of 
having fought for and obtained the hberty of the 
people was by no means due to the army alone, and 
that its leader had presumed upon the jus divinum, 
and had most unjustifiably assumed the powers of a 
monarchy. Lengthy debates ended in a general 
desire to limit the personal privileges of the Protector 
and the Council of State, both in peace and war. 
The Parliament expected to have full power of militia, 
to be able to diminish the standing army, and to retain 


122 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


the right of dissolving the same altogether, when 
Cromwell, who certainly deserved high recognition, 
should have retired. The office of Protector was 
distinctly pronounced non-hereditary, and to be de- 
cided by election. It was to be renewed by the 
Parliament, and not by the Council of State. It is 
easy to see what sort of opinions prevailed, in spite of 
all the signatures. The Protector, with his theories 
of the divine calling of the Supreme Power in the 
state, was continually called upon to submit to the 
Parliament, while they put off from week to week the 
most important business of all, namely, the granting 
of means of subsistence to the army, failing which, 
the troops would once more have to establish free- 
quarter for themselves. 

At last Cromwell’s patience gave way. The five 
months had not yet elapsed before the end of which 
no dissolution might take place; but Cromwell 
reckoned in soldier-months of twenty-eight days, ac- 
cording to which the allotted time was up on January 
22nd, 1655, and on that day Cromwell once more 
interfered. He angrily reminded them how, instead 
of acting up to the responsibilities they had under- 
taken, and taking his warning to heart, weeds and 
nettles, briars and thorns, had thriven under their 
shadow. He bemoaned the covetousness which, under 
pretence of building up the constitution, only dreamed 
of overthrowing the Protectorate. And, finally, he 
considered it his duty to inform them that their re- 
maining together any longer was not for the good of. 
these nations, Truly a regent in his position had by 
no means a bed of roses; but the last thing he thought 
of was to throw up the post he had undertaken. The 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 123 


old enthusiasts about absolute liberty and “ Christ’s 
reign upon earth” considered this the arbitrary 
position of a usurper, and seized the opportunity to 
kick over the traces. One of the worst, Major Wild- 
man, who, though a member of Parliament, could not 
be induced to sign the instrument, and who saw more 
chance of his Anabaptist notions finding favour with 
Charles Stuart, had to be summarily arrested in his 
own house, and was imprisoned in Chepstow Castle 
with several other ringleaders. As to those Cavaliers 
who had been partially amnestied by the Republic, 
they thought themselves perfectly justified in working 
for the restoration of their King against the Usurper. 
As early as May in the preceding year Cromwell was 


„to have been murdered on a journey to Hampton 


Court. Three noble conspirators paid for this attempt 
with their lives, but it led to a rising in the High- 
lands, which gave some trouble, until General Monk 
drove Lord Middleton out of the country. Fresh 
attempts on both sides were frustrated by mutual 
watchfulness. 

Colonel Overton, a Republican fanatic, was arrested 
in January, while trying to incite the Scotch troops 
to rebellion, in the hopes of invading England with 
them. The same failure attended all the risings 
(mostly planned by nobles) which were to take place 
simultaneously in the counties of Nottingham and 
York, on the Welsh border, and in the South. True, 
on the 11th, 200 horsemen made a daring attack on 
Salisbury during the Assizes, and carried off the High 
Sheriff. Butasingle troop of Cromwell’s horse followed 
them into Devonshire and dispersed them. Several 
gentlemen were beheaded for high treason, others 


124 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


hanged for horse-stealing, and the majority transported 
to Barbadoes. Charles II. speedily returned from 
Middleburg, in Zeeland, to the hospitable protection 
of the Palatinate. The fact that the English counties 
would have nothing to say to his intrigues, showed 
the foreign powers how slender was the chance of the 
return of the Stuarts. 

Still, the inventive brain of the Protector was not 
at a loss to find means for establishing order in the 
land, and for ensuring the safety of his own person. 
In default of other means, the army had to serve his 
turn. In August, England was divided into ten or 
twelve districts, and a trustworthy officer of the rank 
of a major-general placed at the head of each. 
Desborow commanded in six counties in the South- 
West, and Fleetwood in the Midlands and the Kast, 
he having left the government of Ireland to Henry 
Cromwell, the bravest of the Protector’s sons. Old 
Skippon kept order in London, and Lambert in the 
North. They were all experienced, hard-headed men, 
who were naturally hateful to the nation because they 
encouraged anarchy in every form, and still more 
because they calmly took upon themselves the duties 
of communal self-government. 

An income-tax of ten per cent. was imposed 
upon Royalists, who were all, without exception, 
looked upon with suspicion, and the militia, which 
had been so toughly contested by the Parliament, 
made subservient to the major-generals, so that it 
might be drilled into a reserve for the regular army. 
With the assistance of the justices of the peace, they 
had to keep a sharp watch on all the inns and taverns, 
and even over the manners and morals of private indi- 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 125 


viduals. Stage-plays, horse-races, and cock-fights 
were prohibited, not only on account of their demo- 
ralizing influence, but because such-like noble sports 
quickly collected large crowds. Soldiers were posted 
everywhere; indeed, England was in those days 
governed in much the same way as Ireland is now. 
The greater part of the more peaceable inhabitants saw 
the sense of these measures, and put up with them, 
though writhing under the hard rules. 

The army, now numbering 50,000 men, had never 
before been in such capital condition, thanks to the 
strictness of the discipline; while the utmost economy 
was observed in every other respect, the Lord Pro- 
tector giving his officers and subordinates the best 
example in this as in everything else. And the public 
had every opportunity of assuring itself that nothing 
was wasted, and had to admit that the much-abused 
arbitrariness of the Protector, which was even worse 
than that of the Stuarts, in arresting people regardless 
of their rank or position, had for its only object the 
peace and welfare of the nation. 

The consequence was that most people felt deeply 
grateful to this guardian of society and promoter of 
religious liberty. The Presbyterians especially, and 
their endowed clergy, looked upon him as their saviour ; 
and even those who were still loyal to the King 
despised resistance now, for it would have entailed 
the loss of position at universities and schools, and the 
sacrifice of livings and tithes. But Cromwell, the 
Independent, had always had a leaning to this form 
of Puritan faith, and continued to favour its adherents 
both north and south of the Tweed as long as they kept 
their hands off the reins of government. Accordingly 


126 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


there were Presbyterians in his Ecclesiastical Com- 
mission who were invited to the honourable table of 
the Protector, for the latter made ıt a matter of con- 
science to discuss articles of faith, thus emphasizing 
his principle of allowing others the lıberty required for 
oneself. It was a pity that, owing to the exclusively 


Protestant character of his Government, and the , , 


Jesuitical tendencies of the Catholic church, he could 
not exercise toleration towards Papists as well. As 
to the Anglicans, they had only themselves to thank 
for it that after the latest insurrections they were for- 
bidden to practice their religion in public. 
Unquestionably the hardest task of all was to draw 
the line at those abortive Independent growths, which 
he had once tolerated in his regiment, such as 
the Anabaptists, who denied all judicial authority, 
and the Quakers, who gave such universal offence 
because they admitted no worldly law, and drove 
the authorities to desperation by their steady refusal 
ever to take an oath. Itwas observed that the worst 
fanatics were seldom severely punished. Imprison- 
ment seemed to be the only effectual remedy against 
them. George fox, the head of the Quakers, was 
arrested, and had to sign a written promise never to 
draw the sword against the Lord Protector and his 
government. But when Cromwell, anxious to meet 
such an exceptional character, sent for him to White- 
hall, he soon recognized that his was a nature which 
would avoid rather than court any struggle for power; 
and after “much discourse ” together, Oliver dismissed 
him, “ with moist-beaming eyes,” saying, “ Come 
again to my house! If thou and I were but an hour 
of the day together, we should be nearer one to the 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. br 


other. I wish no more harm to thee than I do to my 
own soul,” ! 

Everyone was allowed to worship God in his own 
way, provided only that he put no spoke in the wheels 
of the state coach. Only such churches as identified 
themselves with the state were not included in a 
system of toleration very unusual in those days. Al- 
together, everything pointed to an entire separation 
of civil from ecclesiastical authority, and the fact that 
the Jews were readmitted into Christian and Protes- 
tant England, after 100 years of exile, goes far to 
prove this assertion. Manasse ben Israel, a rich 
Amsterdam Jew, of Portuguese origin, and his co- 
religionists, presented a petition to be allowed to erect 
a synagogue in the city. After mature consideration, 
this was granted by the Protector and his council in 
December, 1655, probably with an eye to the policy 
of trade. But most extraordinary of all was the 
appearance of Rabbi Jakob ben Azahel, who came 
all the way from Asia, under the pretext of consul- 
ting the Hebrew manuscripts at Cambridge University, 
but in reality for the purpose of going to Hunting- 
don, there to study the family tree of the wonderful 
man who clothed his thoughts so 1mcomparably in 
the language of the Psalmist and the Prophets, so as 
to ascertain whether he were not of Jewish origin, 
nay, the promised Lion of the House of Juda. In 
truth, with the sword in one hand, and the Bible in 
the other, the Protector understood how to quell 
revolution and counter-revolution. 


1 Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part ix., after letter 
cclll. 


CHAPTER XI. 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 


NEGOTIATIONS WITH SWITZERLAND.—CROMWELL BREAKS 
WITH SPAIN.—EXPEDITION TO THE MEDITERRANEAN.— 
BLAKE’S VICTORIES.—PENN’S FAILURE AT ST. DO- 
MINGO.—WAR IS DECLARED WITH SPAIN, AND A 
TREATY SIGNED WITH FRANCE.—CROMWELL PROTECTS 
THE VAUDOIS.— COLONEL SEXBY’S PLOTS.— HOME 
AFFAIRS.—THE COST OF A REVOLUTION.—FRESH 
ELECTIONS.—CAPTURE OF A SPANISH FLEET.—OFFENCE 
AND PUNISHMENT OF NAYLOR.—-SINDERCOMB.—-TH2 
‘“ PETITION AND ADVICE.”—-CROMWELL IS OFFERED 
THE TITLE OF KING.—HESITATION TO ACCEPT IT.— 
HIS REFUSAL. 


ROMWELL’S internal foes might well tremble, 
now that the great powers of Europe had begun 

to feel his powerful arm. It was quite in keeping 
with his policy, both at home and abroad, that he should 
have concluded the war with Protestant Holland 
which the Long Parliament had begun, and established 
an alliance with the Scandinavian States. In the 
spring of 1654 he accredited John Pell, a very culti- 
vated divine, as his representative to the Protestant 
Cantons of the Helvetic Confederacy, who was accom- 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 129 


panied by that curious Scotchman, John Dury, so in- 
defatigable in the interests of an evangelical union. 
The latter soon perceived a slight Irenian tendency in 
the theological discussions of the German churches. 
In the interest of trade, friendly relations. had long 
since been established with the Hanse-towns, Bremen, 
Hamburg, and Danzig, but the influence of a common 
faith extended as far as the Courts of Heidelberg and 
Stuttgardt, and to the University of Helmstädt, 
where just about this time the doctrines of Calixtus, 
who opposed the dogmatical Lutherans, were de- 
servedly creating sensation. 

Cardinal Mazarin, who was still engaged in a fierce 
strife with Spain, would have given anything to be 
at peace with the English conqueror. But his efforts 
in that direction were not assisted by the suspicion 
excited in Paris by Cromwell’s negotiations in Swit- 
zerland and his friendly attitude towards French 


.. Protestants; besides which, Cromwell asked a very 


high price for his friendship. From the French he 
demanded Dunkirk, from the Spaniards that they 
should help him to obtain Calais. Both powers were 
a long time making up their minds, and offered high 
subsidies to obtain such an ally; but at length fate 
decided against the Spaniards. They flatly refused 
Cromwell’s request to admit English merchants into 
their strictly-closed colonies, and to allow them to have 
a share in South American trade. As to immunity 
from the Inquisition, or, as the Protector called it, 
the liberty of carrying a Bible in one’s pocket, that 
could not possibly be granted, and the Spanish am- 
bassador replied that his master would as soon lose 
his eyes. France could not well adopt this tone, if 
K 


130 | OLIVER CROMWELI. 


only for the sake of its own Huguenot inhabitants ; 
besides which, it was constantly being allied with 
German, Dutch, and Scandinavian Protestants. Added 
to this, the English had been most cruelly attacked by 
the Spaniards in the Antilles Isles, under the old 
pretext, that they had no business thero at all, 
according to the division of the world by Pope 
Alexander VI. 

But nothing irritated the Protector more than that 
the religious and naval instincts of his people should 
be pitted against one another by such intolerant and 
hard restraints as had been the case once before under 
Elizabeth. Though the English merchants might well 
tremble atthe idea of a war with Spain, Cromwell unhesi- 
tatingly, though secretly, laid his plans for a crushing 
blow. Of course the extensive preparations during 
the year 1654 could not pass altogether unnoticed. 
But when Admiral William Penn left Portsmouth on 
December 26th, in command of a large fleet, he had 
received written instructions which were only to be 
opened on the high seas. He was thereby charged 
to attack the possessions of the King of Spain, whose 
only claim upon them was their donation by the Pope, 
and who caused EKnelishmen tobe robbed and murdered. 
Also to make good their position on the mainland, or 
some island in the West Indies. To this end there was 
a considerable force on board under General Venables. 
But they were likewise allowed to capture French 
ships, which showed that the relations between these 
two countries were anything but amicable. 

In the meanwhile, Robert Blake had left Plymouth 
for the Mediterranean in October, with twenty-four 
ships, a move which decidedly puzzled both French 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 131 


and Spaniards. Admiral Brest took care to avoid 
meeting him in the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Duc 
de Guise, who was once more trying his best to take 
Naples, went out of his way when he appeared in 
those parts. The Sea-General first demanded “ re- 
paration old or recent done to the English nation,” 
and the Archduke at Florence, and Pope Alexander 
VII. in the Vatican, protested in vain against the 
threatening attitude of these heretics. On April 3rd, 
1655, Blake took captive the Bey of Tunis, after a 
futile attempt from the batteries of Goletta and Porto 
Ferino to stop his entrance into the Bay. After this 
feat, the Divan of Constantinople, the Signoria of 
Venice, and the Knights of St. John at La Valette, 
met him half way and surrendered. What the latter 
could no longer succeed in enforcing in Malta, was 
accomplished by the mere sight of our ships,—the 
Despot of Algiers gave the Christian slaves their 
hberty. 

Cromwell and Blake certainly did not agree on 
political grounds, but the former was always delighted 
to praise the Admiral’s exploits in his correspondence, 
and took care to keep him well supported and to give 
him useful hints, while Blake showed the most pa- 
triotic loyalty in obeying orders, and was ready to 
attack Spain in the spring, and to watch for the Pla'e 
fleet in the Atlantic. 

It was a pity the other squadron did not act with 
similar judgment. Penn landed at Hispaniola on 
April 14th, but did not, hke Sir Francis Drake, suc- 
ceed in taking San Domingo. The two leaders 
quarrelled, and half the troops consisted of an undis- 
ciplined rabble. The worst mistake they made, was 


132 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


in landing so far from a town. The strength of the 
men gave way in the tropical heat of that desolate 
wilderness, and the’ Spaniards drove them back to 
their ships. No amount of severity could induce 
them to renew the attempt. 

The conquest of Jamaica, which yielded with hardly 
an attempt at resistance, did not at first make up for 
this loss. Like many men who took part in the West 
Indian expedition, the governors died in quick suc- 
cession. But for Cromwell’s energy and perseverance, 
Jamaica’s undoubted advantages of soil and climate 
would never have been turned to such good account 
as to make that island the centre of England’s naval 
power in those seas. Still, he felt the defeat at 
Hispaniola acutely, and ıt could not fail to influence 
public opinion in England. When both Penn and 
Venables returned without having obtained satisfac- 
tion, they were deprived of their office and marched 
off to the Tower. 

The Spanish Government next placed an embargo 
upon the English merchant service, thereby exciting 
great indignation against the Protector; but it could 
not make up its mind to any retributive action, either in 
Jamaica or anywhere else, for by any such step Spain’s 
Dutch possessions would have been irretrievably lost. 
But all the more fiery were Cromwell’s efforts to 
wipe out the blot, which he considered a chastise- 
ment from Heaven. He felt that the failure of an 
enterprise must never be allowed to influence the un- 
settled conditions of Great Britain, or to lose him his 
prestige abroad. It had now become necessary to 
“strive with the Spaniard for the mastery of all those 
seas,’ as he wrote to the governor of Jamaica. 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 133 


The Spanish Peninsula was also threatened with 
war. It was only when the ambassador Cardenas 
(who did not dare accede to England’s demands for 
free trade and exemption from the Inquisition) took 
his leave, that Cromwell made up his mind to accept 
the proposals which Cardinal Mazarin had been 
pressing upon him for the last year. On October 
23rd war was solemnly declared with Spain, and on 
November 28th the heralds proclaimed, amid a flourish 
of trumpets, the conclusion of the treaty with France. 

But for the failure at San Domingo, Cromwell 
would have steered clear of both powers, but it was 
now quite plain to him that, unlike her southern 
neighbour, France would never entirely submit to the 
Pope. On the contrary, the French had repeatedly 
assisted foreign Protestants; and though it was not in- 
cluded in the treaty, they had but lately promised to 
leave their Huguenot countrymen in peace. But to 
obtain the desired alliance with England, France had 
first to give some proof of her pacific intentions. In 
the transactions with Protestant Switzerland, the point 
at issue was the protcction of the Vaudois, whom the 
Duke of Savoy wanted forcibly to convert to the 
Catholic religion, and in the event of their refusal, 
threatened to expel them from their native valleys. 
At one time Cromwell thought of teaching this in- 
tolerant Prince a lesson, by ordering Blake to attack 
him from Malta or Livorno, and then to seize upon 
Nice and Villa Franca. But that would not have 
given him possession of Piedmont. Then it came to 
pass that the Duke caused a terrible massacre of Pro- 
testants in April, on which oceasion he made great 
use of Irish soldiers. Such a challenge aroused the 


134 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


indignation of all the Protestant Powers. Diplomatic 
intercession, and collections of money in the Palatinate 
and Brandenburg, in Holland and England, did not 
suffice to protect these unhappy people from their 
persecutor. Cromwell, who learned all particulars 
in May, and would dearly have loved to unite all the 
Protestant forces, at once dictated a letter to Milton, 
representing to the Duke that he considered himself 
bound to side with the Vaudois, not only in the name 
of humanity, but for the sake of their common faith. 
He appealed to the Kings of Denmark and Sweden 
and to the Prince of Transylvania, and then tried 
hard to excite the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland 
to some sort of warlike demonstration ; it was however 
quite hopeless to expect any heroism on their part, for, 
in spite of the promised assistance, they shrank from 
the immediate prospect of a war with the Catholic 
Confederates, united with Savoy and Bavaria. Crom- 
well’s envoys, Pell and Sir Samuel Morland (who 
eventually wrote a history of the Protestant churches 
in Piedmont), could do nothing in Zurich and Geneva 
but distribute money to those who had been driven 
from their hearths and homes, and do their best to 
pacify the orthodox Prince. 

France had had a share in this business, but now 
adopted the opposite policy as a condition of peace, 
which ended in an agreement with Cromwell. Not 
until then did Mazarin’s ambassadors at Turin obtain 
leave for the Vaudois to return to their homes. And 
this diplomatic success of the Protestant cause was 
followed by the expulsion from France of Charles II., 
and all his followers. 

The alliance between France and England, which 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 135 


was such a surprise to the whole of Europe, for it had 
never prospered in the early days of the Stuarts and 
of the Republic, was now firmly and effectually ce- 
mented. Cromwell’s enemies, both within and without, 
seemed to feel that the failure at Hispaniola had only 
intensified the attack on the slowly decaying power of 
Spain. Altogether, circumstances were so changed, 
that the restoration of the Stuarts was talked of at 
Madrid, and negotiations were even entered into, in 
the name of the Republic, with an Anabaptist fanatic, 
Colonel Sexby, to plan the overthrow of the Pro- 
tector. 

In the meanwhile, Cromwell had placed Lord Mon- 
tague, whom he thoroughly trusted, by the side of 
Blake, and set the two admirals to conquer either 
Cadiz or Gibraltar, maintaining that if the latter were 
once taken, it could be defended by six good frigates, 
and would save the expense of an entire fleet. 
Whether his plan was practicable or not,—and it was 
not carried out then for want of troops on shore,— 
his far-seeing eye had hit upon a point which was to 
play an important part in the subsequent history of 
England. For the time being he had to leave it to 
his sea-generals to find out the best way of cutting 
off all communication between Spain and the West 
Indies. The squadron sent to Lisbon in June ex- 
torted from the King of Portugal the ratification 
of the long-promised and much-deferred treaty, with 
the payment of the stipulated sum of £50,000. 
The Protector thus stood up against the absolutely 
Catholic Powers, and that entirely alone, without the 
assistance of any other Protestant country. It was 
a current jest, that the Dutch would far rather leave 


136 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Cromwell to his fate, than risk losing a keg of sack, or 
a basket of raisins. 

As he received no subsidies, not even from France, 
Cromwell had to raise the means necessary for these 
exertions at home. But even the Long Parliament 
had found out that revolutions are not to be had for 
nothing. Since then there had always been debts at 
the end of each year. In 1656 the deficit amounted 
to £800,000, while, in spite of the strictest economy, 
the administration swallowed up £20,000, the navy 
£900,000, and the army nearly £1,400,000. When 
the major-generals were summoned to London by 
Cromwell in the spring, they debated whether a 
further taxation of fifty per cent. should be laid upon 
the Royalists, whether the old system of a forced loan 
should be resorted to, or, as Cromwell himself wished, 
a general income-tax should be imposed upon the 
nation. But even these, his most trustworthy officials, 
who knew the feelings of the people better than any- 
body, did not dare recommend any one of these alter- 
natives, though much was expected from the fresh 
elections. As soon as this was settled, the political 
life of the nation got into full swing again. Supporters 
of the government prayed to the Lord to preserve the 
debates from the exaggeration of former assemblies. 
But Parliamentary Republicans took fresh hope. In 
the next elections, which went off everywhere most 
smoothly and soberly, Sir Harry Vane “tried in three 
places and missed in all ;” yet he was bold enough to 
send Cromwell his pamphlet, “The Healing Ques- 
tion,’ in which he expounded his ideas of a Parliament 
cleared of Royalists, and defended the sovereignty of 
the people, even though supreme power be given to 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 137 


the “ Single Person,” but at the same time gave the 
army no exceptional privileges. It was only to be 
expected that the government should consider him 
dangerous, and as he declined to give any security, 
he was locked up at Carisbrooke, in the Isle of Wight. 

On the whole, the results of the elections were more 
hopeful than they had ever been, for, thanks to the 
activity of the major-generals, the majority consisted 
of officials, supporters of the existing system, and 
men who were personally attached to the Protector, 
although of course the opposition had succeeded in 
getting in a number of their representatives. But 
this time the Council of State had no hesitation, on 
the strength of the “ Instrument,” in making the per- 
sonal qualifications of each individual member a con- 
dition of his admission. However unparliamentary 
such a proceeding might be, in this way over a hundred 
suspicious characters were at once excluded from the 
House. 

On September 17th, after a sermon by Dr. Owen, 
the Independent Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, the Pro- 
tector addressed the Parliament in the Painted Cham- 
ber. This is one of his most long-winded speeches ; 
but though difficult to follow, it is full of intensely 
thoughtful ideas. He began by speaking of the duty 
of protecting the state against all its enemies. Among 
foreign foes, he called the Spaniard, “not only our 
enemy accidentally, but providentially so,” because 
ever since “ Queen Elizabeth, of glorious memory— 
we need not be ashamed to call her so ”—-began the 
Reformation, Spain had done her utmost to stop the 
development of our country and faith, and would 
never tolerate liberty of conscience, and would continue 


138 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


to persecute Protestant Englishmen with fire and 
sword. And this was the foe with whom King James 
made peace, and with whom the Long Parliament 
wanted to be on friendly terms, though he depended 
on the pleasure of the Pope, that “ Antichrist against 
whom all Christian Europe ought to unite.” The 
fact that Charles IT. had thrown himself into the arms 
of Spain, was hailed by Cromwell as a welcome explana- 
tion of the numerous Royalist plots, and was a capital 
excuse for imposing double taxes upon them. But the 
people who came off worst of all, were those who, over- 
flowing with wild notions of liberty and justice, called 
themselves “ Commonwealth’s men,” and anticipated 
Christ’s reign upon earth. For the sake of any foolish 
plot, these Republicans would have joined their fate 
with Papists or Cavaliers. Such a state of things, he 
considered, entirely justified “the little poor inven- 
tion,” namely, the institution of the major-generals 
at the cost of the evil-doers themselves. ‘There was 
all the more reason for this, as the care for universal 
improvement must never grow slack. 

The principle of religious toleration was empha- 
tically defined as a duty of all civil authorities for the 
protection of all good Christians interested in main- 
taining existing authority, and so as to prevent the 
“trampling upon the heels” of Presbyterians, Inde- 
pendents, and Anabaptists. For this reason it was 
necessary that the church be maintained (by tithes or 
otherwise), for unless something was done towards 
the support of just ministers, how would it be possible 
to improve the morals and combat the dissolute 
pleasures of the Cavaliers? Cromwell further con- 
sidered ıt most necessary to reform the law, especially 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 139 


in criminal cases, for, as he said, “ to hang a man for 
six-and-eightpence, and I know not what; to hang 
for a trifle, and acquit murder,—is in the minis- 
tration of the Law through the ill-framing of it. I 
have known in my experience abominable murders ac- 
quitted.” But the suppression of these numerous 
abuses required the self-sacrifice of the nation. The 
state was ‘“‘hugely in debt,’ though the sum of 
£2,500,000 was probably an exaggeration, and he 
invited the members to “‘ inspect the treasury and see 
how moneys have been expended.” In conclusion, 
the Protector spoke of his chief antagonists, who 
were “under the bondage of scruples,”’ and besought 
his hearers not to ‘dispute of unnecessary and un- 
profitable things, which may divert you from carrying 
on so glorious a work as thisis. I think every objec- 
tion that ariseth is not to be answered; nor have I 
time for it. I say, look up to God, have peace among 
yourselves. Know assuredly, that if I have interest, I 
am by the voice of the people the Supreme Magistrate, 
and, it may be, do know somewhat that might satisfy 
my conscience, if I stood in doubt.” Finally he recited 
the eighty-fifth Psalm, and in a burst of enthusiasm 
invited them to join in Luther’s Psalm (as he calls 
Psalm forty-six). “IfPope and Spaniard, and Devil 
and all, set themselves against us,... . yet in the 
name of the Lord we should destroy them.”' 

As was to be expected, the carefully weeded as- 
sembly entirely endorsed the Protector’s opinion that 
war with Spain was unavoidable. The Stuarts were 
again declared to have forfeited all their mghts to the 


1 « Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part ix., speech v. 


1400 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


throne of England. A law to ensure the personal 
safety of the Lord Protector seemed quite necessary 
for the nation’s peace. But when in October a despatch 
arrived from Admirals Blake and Montague, with the 
news that Captain Staines had at last captured part of 
the Plate fleet, it was accepted as a sign that Heaven 
approved of his decision. In the beginning of No- 
vember the delighted people watched a long train of 
thirty-eight waggon-loads of the precious metal, worth 
over a million, rattling along the London road from | 
Portsmouth to the Tower. A day of public thanks- 
giving was celebrated after this victory over an im- 
placable foe. Meanwhile, Cromwell commissioned 
his agents in Paris, Geneva, and Zurich to make the 
most of the favourable issue of the debate in all their 
publications, so as to counteract the numerous false 
reports which the Continental press had assiduously 
spread about, and which emanated especially from 
Cologne. 

And yet, even in this Parliament, as soon as it 
became a question of granting subsidies, the old party- 
spirit between army and people again asserted itself. 
It was only when the civil faction, to which belonged 
Bulstrode Whitlocke, obtained a majority in January, 
1657, thata supply of £400,000 was voted. But this 
called in question the exceptional position of the major- 
generals. However justly they might have acted as 
governors, a military power as such, was not coun- 
tenanced by the nation. It was on the cards, that if 
the Parhament were forced to try a fresh experiment, 
they would be replaced by a judicial code of laws. 

Difficulties arose on all sides. After endless discus- 
sions, James Nayler, a poor hare-brained Quaker, who 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 141 


said he represented the Son of God, was condemned to 
the same cruel torments which Archbishop Laud had 
once so freely dispensed. Cromwell tried to interfere, 
saying that as he had been intrusted with supreme 
authority, he desired to know the reason of such ar- 
bitrary proceedings. He considered his impotence to 
control the decrees of the House as a flaw in the con- 
stitution. And many thousands of peace-loving En- 
glishmen looked gloomily into the future, when the 
Protector’s health began to fail, or when fresh plots 
were made against his life. What other general 
could be expected to keep down the fanatical Sectaries 
with such strength and firmness as he had done? Or, 
if the restoration of the Stuarts should come to any- 
thing, would it not open a door to Catholicity? Con- 
sequently the nation was seized with a genuine panic, 
when, on January 8th, a certain Miles Sindercomb, a 
creature of Sexby’s, who had been dismissed from the 
army on account of his eccentricities, was found out 
in a plot to blow up Cromwell’s apartments in White- 
hall. He succeeded in taking poison the night before 
he was to have been executed; but an incendiary 
pamphlet, entitled “ Killing no Murder,” placed him 
in triumph by the side of the ancient Romans. ‘The 
Parliament, however, with Speaker Widdrington at 
its head, hastened to wish the Protector joy of his 
deliverance. He replied bya few modest and grateful 
sentences, pointing to the many blessings which God 
had bestowed upon the three nations, and, in the words 
of the Psalmist, recommending them to preserve peace 
and unity among themselves. The day after the 
public thanksgiving, the whole House was asked by 
his Highness to dinner at Whitehall, where he en- 


142 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


tertained his generals with music. ven in the 
churches of Zurich and Berne the ministers gave 
thanks for the preservation of his life as a boon to 
Protestantism. 

This exciting event had the most lasting effect at 
Westminster, for in the ensuing debates voices were 
heard demanding that Cromwell be invested with a 
still higher, hereditary,—nay, royal power. The English 
people simply could not separate their ideas of liberty 
and justice from the forms and dignities of the old 
constitution. The indignant protest from the army 
only excited the hope of putting an end to army and 
Protectorate alike. On February 23rd, after lengthy 
and earnest debates, and two divisions, the House 
decided to hear a paper read by Alderman Sir Chris- 
topher Pack, ‘‘ somewhat tending to the settlement 
of the nation,” which he called a “ Remonstrance 
from the Parliament.” Four days later a hundred 
officers appeared at Whitehall—among them Lambert, 
the originator of the Instrument, the annulling of 
which was the object of the agitation—to implore the 
Protector to keep his solemn promise of observing the 
old order. He did not entirely succeed in quieting 
their apprehensions, however scornfully he might 
speak of the title of king, which he had already been 
pressed to accept, and which, he said, was of no more 
value to him “ than a feather in his hat.” He seriously 
represented to them, however, how very unpopular 
their power had become, and how no government 
could exist without the approbation of the people, and 
the consideration of their civil rights. He could not 
have done more to encourage the opposition party in 
its high-flown notions. 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 143 


Pack’s “ Remonstrance,” which afterwards called 
itself “ Petition and Advice,” was discussed during 
the following weeks. The majority pleaded for the 
re-institution of Parliamentary rights, for free elections, 
from which only malignants were to be excluded, and 
for security against arbitrary dissolution. But it was 
likewise demanded that these privileges should be 
effectually and permanently embodied in the “ Single 
Person,” and for this reason some of the chains which 
had restrained him up to the present must needs be 
cast aside. His successor was to be appointed by 
himself, and not by a Council of State, and he was also 
to take the initiative in the proposed establishment of 
a © second House.” 

It quite accorded with Cromwell’s ideas that both 
army and navy should be in a normal state, and that 
“ Liberty of Conscience”’ should be made law, so long 
as the members of different denominations kept the 
peace ; but of course this was hardly to be expected 
from Papists and Episcopalians. At length, on March 
25th, the long-postponed debate about the title of 
king took place, and many bitter speeches were called 
forth by the opposition of the staunch Republicans. 
They succumbed nevertheless, with sixty-two votes 
against 123, which bestowed on Cromwell the title, 
office, and dignity of King of England, Scotland, and 
Ireland. This important bill, consisting of eighteen 
articles, of which no single one was to carry weight 
without the others, was engrossed on vellum, and pre- 
sented to his Highness by the Speaker on March 3lst, 
at 11 a.m., accompanied by the whole House. 

In his answer to the address the Protector requested 
a few days’ consideration so as to deliberate with 


144 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


himself and the Lord upon this offer, which surpassed 
all his previous trials. On April 3rd he called a 
committee at his house, which included many trust- 
worthy men, such as Lord Broghil, General Montague, 
the Earl of Tweedale, Whalley, Desborough, and 
Whitlocke; and though he expressed his appreciation 
of the great confidence placed in him, which was 
bound to advance the “Civil Liberty and Interest of 
the Nation,” still he refused to “ undertake this charge 
under that title.’ The solidarity which was made 
the condition of the plan was the dilemma on which _ 
everything turned. His staunchest supporters found 
his answer very vague, but the Parliament was of a 
different opinion. It resolved to overrule his hesita- 
tion, and to this object appointed a committee of 
ninty-nine members, among whom were the most 
eminent lawyers, like Whitlocke, Glynn, Fiennes, and 
old Speaker Lenthall, now Master of the Rolls, The 
Fifth-Monarchy men came hopelessly to grief, now 
that ıt was absolutely a question of electing a king. 


CHAPTER XII. 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 


CONFERENCES REGARDING THE KINGSHIP.—-THE TITLE IS 
EXPUNGED FROM THE ““PETITION AND ADVICE.”— NEW 
CONSTITUTION.—BLAKE’S VICTORY AT SANTA CRUZ.— 
HIS DEATH.—TREATY WITH FRANCE.— MARDYKE,—— 
NEW PARLIAMENT WITH A ‘“‘ SECOND HOUSE.’’?—ITS 
DISSOLUTION BY CROMWELL. 


N April 11th began those remarkable conferences 

of the Committee of Ninety-nine, when many 
worthy gentlemen made speeches, in the hope of over- 
coming resistance by legal arguments and Cromwell’s 
own traditions. It was alleged that the title of Pro- 
tector was not known to the law, while that of King was, 
and had been for many hundreds of years. The lawyers 
particularly declared, that however often the represen- 
tative of supreme power might change, the very title 
of King was a bond between the law and the people. 
Lord Broghil alone expressed a new idea, by reminding 
them of the eleventh Act of Henry VII., by which 
“all persons that obey a King de facto, are to be 
held guiltless, not so if they serve a Protector de 
facto.’ In answer to this, and a great deal more, 
Cromwell said that the legislative power could not 

L 


146 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


possibly be in “those four or five letters, or whatever 
else it had been! That signification goes to the 
thing, certainly it does; and not to the name.” He 
thought there could be no doubt that he would be 
equally obeyed under his present title. “ It is known 
toyouall... . that the Supreme Authority going 
by another name and under another title than that 
of King hath been, why it had been already twice 
complied with! .... And truly I may say that 
almost universal obedience hath been given by all 
ranks and sorts of men to both. Now this, on the part 
of both these authorities, was a beginning of the 
highest degree of magistracy at the first alteration, 
and at a time when that ‘ Kingship’ was the name 
established; and the new name, though it was the 
name of an invisible thing, the very name I say was 
obeyed, did pass current, was received, and did carry 
on the Public Justice of the Nation.” He then re- 
verted to his personal antecedents, which had raised 
him to a place, “ not so much of doing good,” but of 
preventing “‘imminent evil.” The first thing he 
considered was “ the settling of the peace and liberty 
of this nation ;” “and in that so far as I can I am ready 
to serve, not as a King, but as a Constable if you 
like! . . .. a good Constable set to keep the peace 
of the Parish.” He reminded them of his brave 
‘‘Tronsides,” and said he knew that there were still 
“such men in this Nation; godly men of the same 
spirit, men that will not be beaten down by a worldly 
or carnal spirit, while they keep their integrity. .. . 
I cannot think that God would bless an undertaking 
of anything, Kingship or whatever else, which would 
justly and with cause grieve them.” Speaking of 


CRO:IWEIEL AS PROTECTOR. 147 


fanatics and sectarians, he gave it as his opinion that: 
“You will be better able to root out of this Nation 
that disobedient spirit and principle,—and to do so 
is as desirable as anything in this world,—by com- 
plying, indulging and being patient to the weakness 
and infirmities of men who have been faithful and 
have bled all along in this Cause.” In conclusion, he 
declared that “the Providence of God hath laid aside 
this title of King providentially ... . by issue of 
ten or twelve yearscivil war... . . God hath seemed 
so to deal with the Persons and the Family that He 
blasted the very Title. .... I will not seek to set 
up that which Providence hath destroyed, and laid in 
the dust ; I would not build Jericho again ! ”' 

This closed the proceedings for that day, and when 
during the following days Cromwell pleaded indis- 
position, matters grew very strained, and that not 
only in Parliamentary circles. The effects made 
themselves felt even in foreign newspapers. Few 
people could understand why this man’s ambition 
stopped short of the very highest goal. And yet 
it was impossible to accuse him of hypocrisy. 
When the conference was resumed on the 16th and 
20th, the argument was brought forward by W hit- 
locke, that Cromwell, “in refusing this Kingship, will 
do what never any that were actual Kings of England 
did, reject the advice of his Parliament.” In his 
speech, however, he strongly emphasized the difference 
between himself and the “inheritors by birthright,” 
and for this reason would not admit that he was bound 
to follow in their footsteps. “And now when I say 


1 “©Cyomwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part x., speech x1. 


148 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


. ... I did out of necessity undertake that Business, 
which I think no man but myself would have under- 
taken,—it hath pleased God that I have been instru- 
mental in keeping the Peace of the Nation to this 
day. .. . . If the wisdom of Parliament should have 
found a way to settle the Interests of this Nation 

. . I would have lain at their feet or at anybody 
else’s feet, that things might have run in such a 
current.”! His interlocutors must indeed have felt 
that he had gone into the matter very deeply. They 
had to content themselves that the question of king- 
ship should be put on one side for a time, and that 
Cromwell should occupy himself with the other points 
of the New Instrument. In the conference of April 
21st he recalled the “Long” and the “ Little” Parlia- 
ment, compared to which the New Settlement, more 
than any former attempt, held out a prospect of peace 
and liberty to the nation after its long struggle. In 
some of the particulars he wished for some little 
alteration, especially with regard to the Hlection Laws. 
The exclusion of public preachers appeared unfair to 
the old Independent, who acknowledged the right of 
every believer to speak extempore. He further de- 
manded the right not for once, but for always, of 
having a share in the elections of the other House, 
and objected that the appointment of judges, principal 
officers of state, etc., should be exclusively in the 
hands of the Parliament. He finally demanded in- 
creased supplies for carrying on the Spanish war, as 
that would be the simplest way to show other powers 
how thoroughly it was approved of by the nation. The 


1 “ Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part x., speech xii. 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 149 


Parliament hastened to act upon Cromwell’s sugges- 
tions.as much as possible. On May Ist they presented 
the amended Bill to the Protector, in the expectation 
that he had at last made up his mind about the prin- 
cipal point, 2.e., the kingship. 

Weare told how Cromwell talked over this important 
question with individual members of the committee, 
and “ laying aside his greatness, he would be ex- 
ceedingly familiar with them,” but how, after having 
played at Crambo, and smoked a pipe of tobacco 
with them, ‘‘ he would fall again to his serious and 
great business of the kingship.” It was reported 
that his family pressed him to accept the title of King; 
and the Royalists rejoiced in anticipation over the 
“fatal step, which would bring about his fall. Never- 
theless, he remained perfectly cool, and as keen and 
sharp-sighted as ever. Could heof all people assume 
the crown which had been torn from the Stuarts? 
Could he recall the old constitution and deny the new 
one? Inthe Republican and military party, to which 
he himself belonged, the dissenting voices would 
never have been silenced. On May 8th the officers 
presented a counter-remonstrance, and that very day 
Cromwell invited the entire House to meet him in 
the Banqueting House, and in a short speech declined 
the crown. “I have truly thought, and I do still 
think, that, at the best, if I should do anything on 
this account to answer your expectation, at the best 
I should do it doubtingly. And certainly whatsoever 
is so is not of faith.”! Lawyer Whitlocke indig- 
nantly ascribes this refusal to the united influence of 


1 « Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part x., speech xiv. 


150 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Commonwealth’s men and officers. Of the latter, 
indeed, very few changed their opinions; and all the 
most eminent men, such as Desborow and Fleetwood, 
were decidedly opposed to the title of King. In fact, 
Lambert could not bear to witness the destruction of 
his work, and accordingly retired, and “ cultivated 
flowers” at Wimbledon. After ten weeks’ debating, 
the Parliament had to bow to this decision, though 
not without some feelings of disappointment. On the 
19th the name of king was expunged from the peti- 
tion, and on the 22nd the Lord Protector was invested 
with all the attributes of an independent prerogative 
and a distinctly royal power, which had not charac- 
terized the Instrument of 1653. Freed from the 
supervision of the Council of State, Cromwell was - 
able to unite military influence and the Parliament 
into a supreme and united authority over the three 
kingdoms. 

After fresh oaths had been prescribed for the 
Council of State, and new arrangements made about 
the supplies, this radical change was solemnly inaugu- 
rated on June 26th, when the Lord Protector was 
appointed Supreme Magistrate of the Commonwealth 
of England; and having obtained the right of appoin- 
ting his successor, his dignity had become hereditary ; 
indeed he was king in all but the name. Preceded 
by the Earl of Warwick and Lord Mayor, both carrying 
drawn swords, besides other dignitaries, he went in 
state to Westminster Hall, and took his place under a 
canopy. The speaker threw a purple velvet cloak over 
his shoulders, placed a sceptre of “‘massy gold ”’ in his 
hand, girt the sword about him, and “ delivered to 
him the Bible, richly gilt and bossed,’’—that covenant 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 151 


made by the Lord ages before with all nations, which 
was never so vividly realized as on this occasion. On 
this volume the new oaths were taken which were to 
ratify this eminently Protestant constitution. And 
before the Parliament was prorogued until January 
20th, for the purpose of electing an Upper House, it 
had voted for the union of all the Protestant churches, 
‚which was quite after the heart of the mighty ruler, 
who had so long been making efforts in this direction. 

And it really seemed as though the blessing of 
Heaven attended him, for a few weeks later, on May 
28th, came the news of an incomparable feat of Blake’s. 
He had at last encountered a vast squadron of the » 
enemy’s ships coming heavily laden from the West 
Indies. They ran for shelter into the crescent-shaped 
bay of Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe, which was bristling 
with castles and batteries, But Blake sailed in upon 
them, defying the deadly cross-fire, and destroyed all 
their galleys, who had barely managed to transfer to 
the shore their silver and other treasures. On June 
10th the Protector moved that a “Small Jewel” (of 
£500 value) be sent to him, together with a letter of 
thanks from himself and the Parliament. On the 7th 
of August following, the hero, “ worn out with toil 
and sickness,” died on his flag-ship, the ‘‘ St. George,” 
in sight of Plymouth Harbour. The lifeless body 
was received at Greenwich, and amid mixed feelings 
of joy and sorrow, a public thanksgiving was or- 
ganized. 

It was part of Cromwell’s plan that his allies should 
also take part in the war with Spain. Foremost 
among these was Charles Gustavus of Sweden, who 
threw himself with crushing force on Catholic Poland, 


152 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


and by joining hands with Prince Racoczy of Tran- 
sylvania and Protestant Hungary, effectually pre- 
vented the Habsburgs from assisting their Spanish 
cousins. In his fiery zeal the Protector encouraged 
these conflicts, and thereby fanned the flame of religious 
animosity, which had been gradually dying out, into a 
bright blaze. Consequently it touched him to the 
quick when the old political and mercantile rivalry 
again broke out between the neighbouring states of 
Denmark and Sweden. Over and over again he 
warned them, through Milton, to think more of their 
common welfare than of their individual petty jea- 
lousies. 

In the summer of 1657 one and the same man was 
accredited at the Courts of Stockholm, Kiel, and 
Oldenburg, by the Hanse-towns and by the Elector 
Frederick William of Brandenburg. The latter, “ fa- 
mous in war and peace all over the world,” was for 
the moment at peace with Poland, and came to the 
assistance of Denmark against Sweden. True, he had 
entered into diplomatic relations with the Protector, 
but owing to his partiality to the House of Orange, 
he was not so warm an ally as daring Charles of 
Sweden. Mazarin had to be careful how he entered 
into an alliance with our heretical island, for fear of 
affronting the French clergy; and, in the same way, 
Cromwell had to renounce his idea of a universal 
Protestant union as soon as the storm broke in the 
Netherlands, in such close proximity to England and 
France. For it was from there that the Spaniards 
encouraged the remnants of the #ronde and their 
exiled leader, Prince Louis of Condé ; from there that 
they supported homeless King Charles IL, who had 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 153 


promised to assemble the troops which had been raised 
for hım, either at Ostende or Dunkirk, and thence to 
establish communications with the eager English 
Royalists; he even had hopes of eventually winning 
over part of the British army and navy. And what 
was more, the United Provinces were not only on the 
side of the Danes rather than of the Swedes, but had 
aroused well-founded suspicions that they were rowing 
in the same boat with the Spaniards. Admiral Mon- 
tague, cruising in the channel, was commanded by 
the Protector, in the name of the Law of Nations, 
to watch the movements of a Flushinger, which had 
come into St. Malo’s, said to have twenty-five tons 
of silver on board. 

Cromwell had now sufficient reason to conclude the 
alliance with France by a closer treaty. On March 
23rd both powers bound themselves straightway to 
reduce the three coast-towns Gravelines, Mardyke, 
and Dunkirk, the former to belong to France, the two 
latter to England. Bothstatesmen managed to over- 
look the differences occasioned by their respective 
religions, as well as the traditional political opimions 
of their countries. France promised 20,000 men for 
the attack, and England 6,000 and a naval squadron. 
It was indeed a great event, when, in the middle of 
May, a goodly array of red-coats landed at Boulogne 
under General Reynolds, and young Louis XIV. came 
in person to inspect the ranks of those godly veterans. 
But when, in spite of the treaty, the wily cardinal 
wanted to use them in defending Cambrai, the Pro- 
tector at once put his foot down. His representative 
was Sir William Lockhart, a Scottish nobleman, who 
had served him in France for two years past, both as 


154 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


a diplomat and a soldier, and who, since his marriage 
with Cromwell’s niece, had quite adopted his politics. 
This gentleman not only stopped the march to Cambrai, 
but succeeded in directing the first efforts of the allies 
towards Dunkirk instead of Gravelines. This forced 
Turenne to approach the coast of Flanders and assist 
the allied forces to attack Mardyke, which, having 
been reduced, had to be given up to the English. 
Cromwell himself sent a Dutch engineer to strengthen 
the wooden forts of the place, which had suffered a 
good deal, so that when the Spaniards and Irish 
emigrants under the Duke of York wanted to retake 
Mardyke by scalado, they met with a warm reception, 
This first collision, however, only excited the enemy 
to a still more determined resistance. It was ar- 
ranged that Charles II. and his brother were to land 
in the East and West of England early the following 
year, and this plan was communicated to the Royalists 
and Anabaptists at home. Although Colonel Sexby 
had been recognized and arrested by the Protector’s 
coastguard, in spite of his “ overgrown beard,” 
Ormonde ventured to come to London under an as- 
sumed name, there to work for his King both among 
Cavaliers and discontented Parliamentarians and 
Republicans. Charles II. made the most plausible 
concessions; and what with fair words and bribes, 
made great havoc even among the Protector’s troops. 
Cromwell was of course kept informed of all that went 
on, and could not hesitate to exercise his increased 
authority by supporting the Parliament in every 
possible way, especially as so many of his old comrades 
had been estranged from him. 

Thanks to his diplomatic relations with foreign 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 155 


allies, the Protector was able to associate with other 
sovereigns on an equal footing. His household had 
considerably increased in rank and dignity since the 
time when he was a simple farmer at Huntingdon. 
The confiscations had allotted to him sundry vast 
estates, which had originally belonged to the Duke of 
Buckingham and the Earl of Worcester, and he lived 
sumptuously and as became his position, though with- 
out any sort of ostentation. In November of this 
year he married his two younger daughters in quick 
succession (which fashionable events were duly chro- 
nicled by the papers), Lady Frances to Robert Rich, 
nephew of the Earl, of Warwick, who had remained 
faithful to the Protector in spite of grave religious 
scruples, and Lady Mary to Lord Fauconberg, of the 
Yorkshire family of Bellasis. 

Far more important was the establishment of the 
House of Lords which the new “Instrument” had 
allowed to be formed. Six peers, among whom were 
Lords Manchester, Warwick, and Mulgrave, seemed 
inclined to join it, but not one of them ever took his 
seat, for even Warwick objected to be associated with 
Major-General Hewson, who was reported to have 
been a respectable shoemaker. Among the officers 
were Skippon, Desborow, Whalley, and Pride; among 
lawyers and politicians, Whitlocke, Lenthall, and May- 
nard ; while the Scots were represented by Warriston 
and Lockhart. Cromwell’s two sons, several relatives, 
and a number of loyal adherents who had hitherto had 
seats in the Commons, had also been summoned. 
After a critical revision, sixty-three members were 
raised to this puritanical House of Lords, forty of 
whom actually took their seats. 


156 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


January 20th was fixed for the opening of the 
Parliament which had been thus completed. Great 
excitement prevailed in both parties, on account of 
the warlike state of Flanders, the rumours of an in- 
vasion, the increased vigilance of the government, 
which did not even spare the sanctity of private life, 
and still more on account of the new constitutional 
experiment. The Commons had lost their most trust- 
worthy men by removing them into the Upper House, 
and further regulations gave matters a still more 
threatening aspect. For in return for the preroga- 
tive conferred upon himself, Cromwell had coun- 
tenanced the return of those members who had been 
expelled the year before, on condition that they con- 
sented to take theoath. Most of them agreed to this, 
for they had not only to swear fealty to the Protector, 
but to the privileges of the whole British nation. 
Among those who took the oath were some of Crom- 
well’s most frantic antagonists, such as Ashley Cooper, 
Alderman Luke Thomson, and the Scotchman Thomas 
Scott. Consequently the monarchical power, which 
had grown out of the ruins of an immense convulsion, 
was once again confronted with popular opposition, 
which had never been quite crushed. 

At the opening, Cromwell, who was indisposed, 
only said a few words about civil and ecclesiastical 
liberty, and quoting his favourite Psalm once more 
admonished them to live peaceably. Then Nathaniel 
Fiennes, the Keeper of the Great Seal, took up the 
thread in a more business-like tone. But as early as 
the 25rd it came toa rupture, when the second House 
sent a message to the Commons, asking them to in- 
stitute a holiday. The senders were however sharply 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 157 


reminded that the Parliament had, once upon a time, 
not only got rid of the King, but likewise dissolved 
the House of Lords. The speakers were even careful 
to avoid the expression “the other House,” so as not 
to be premature in acknowledging the new-fangled 
peerage. Added to this, Sir Arthur Haselrig, whose 
relations with Cromwell had for some time been 
getting rather strained, appeared one day in the Com- 
mons, sayıng, “Give me my oath.” Sir Arthur had 
been summoned to the Peers, but preferred his seat 
here. His request could not be denied, and henceforth 
he collected all the forces of the opposition. 

But the ever-watchful Protector did not fail to 
notice the approaching danger. On that very 25th 
of January he invited both Houses to Whitehall, and 
addressed them very seriously. He called their atten- 
tion to the straitened position of Protestantism, 
which was being driven into a corner by the Catholic 
powers, Piedmont, Spain and Austria, where one of 
the Habsburgs had just been elected emperor, as well 
as by Italy and the Pope. He reminded them of the 
King of Sweden, who had gone to war with Denmark, 
while the Protestant Dutch had not scrupled to haggle 
with their co-religionists for the “‘ possession of the 
Sound,” and in their base love of gain to supply the 
bitterest enemy of their faith with ships and ammuni- 
tion. It would never do for England to depend 
solely upon the “ great ditch” surrounding it. “ Let 
us have one heart and soul; one mind to maintain 
the honest and just rights of the Nation, not to pretend 
to them, to the destruction of our peace, to the de- 
struction of the Nation.” He trembles for the fate of 
the army—‘ A poor unpaid Army, the soldiers going 


158 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


barefoot at this time, in this city, this weather.” He 
confesses that he can only expect “what a foolish 
book expresseth,” namely, an ‘ orderly confusion,” 
but adds, that if it should indeed come to this, and 
Peace and the Gospel be overthrown, ‘16 will be said 
of this poor Nation, Actum est de Anglia, it 1s all over 
with England.” His only hope is in the New Frame 
of Government. “I also have taken my oath, to 
}eovern according to the Laws that are now made; and 

f trust I shall fully answer it. And know, I sought 
not this place. I speak it before God, Angels, and 
Men, I pip xor.”! 

But he preached to deaf ears, for his hearers would 
not sanction an increased Protectoral power, and took 
no heed of the self-denying sacrifices of the Protector 
himself. In fact popular opinion, fanned by injudicious 
persons, now denied the Parliament the right of 
making any changes. Cromwell expected the Upper 
House to obtain an authority equal to that of the 
Commons, and a firm control which would support 
the power of the state; but the opposition party, re- 
membering the past, protested against all Lords, and 
especially against those assembled by the caprice of 
the Protector. The House of Commons alone was 
considered the proper representative whereby the 
nation could declare its resolutions and institute laws. 
These ideas began already to counteract the regula- 
tions which had been made against Papists and 
Royalists, to ensure their keeping the peace. There 
was even some talk of an address, demanding that 
Parliament should again have Power of Militia, and 


* “Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part x., speech xvii. 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 159 


the Protector be checked in his arbitrary dismissal of 
officers. 

After ten days of fruitless debating, such incor- 
rigible obstinacy at last made Cromwell lose his tem- 
per. On February 4th, at eleven in the morning, he 
proceeded in all haste to the Hall in the House of 
Lords, and sent the Black Rod to summon the Com- 
mons, who were just then having a frantic debate. 
As soon as they appeared he addressed them in sorrow 
and anger. He told them that they had forced the 
New Settlement upon him, and now refused to submit 
toit. “I would have been glad to have lived under 
my woodside and to have kepta flock ofsheep! .... 
You advised me to come into this place, to be in a 
capacity by your Advice. Yet instead of owning a 
thing, some must have I know not what. . 
Through the intention of devising a Commonwealth 
again! That some people might be the men that 
rule all! .... These things tend to nothing else 
but the playing of the King of Scots’ game (if I may 
so call him), and I think myself bound before God to 
do what I can to prevent it... . . It hath been 
confirmed to me since, not a day ago, that the King 
of Scots hath an Army at the water’s side, ready to 
be shipped for England.” He concluded with the 
emphatic words: “I think it is high time that an end 
be put to your sitting. And I do dissolve this Parlia- 
ment! And let God be judge between you and 
me!”! There were still plenty of people in the 
country who looked upon this action as salutary and 
unavoidable. “ Believe me,” says Samuel Hartlıb, a 


1 “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” part x., speech xviil. 


160 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


German Pole, who was a friend of Milton’s, “ believe 
me, it was of such necessity, that ıf their Session had 
been continued but two or three days longer, all had 
been in blood, both in City and Country, upon Charles 
Stuart’s account.” But when Cromwell assembled his 
officers round him on February 9th (having issued the 
most stringent orders after the dissolution that they 
were to have their men in readiness), and assured 
them of his good faith as long as they were loyal to 
his Government—they one and all vowed to stand 
and fall, to live and die by his side. Indeed his only 
hope lay in the Army, his first great creation, now 
that. he had despaired of uniting his power with the 
Authority of the Parliament. | 

But for thg/Army and the religious principles with 
which it was’imbued, England would never have ob- 
tained that position, whereby Cromwell is placed on a 
level with Elizabeth, William III., and Lord Chatham. 
It was only natural that his protection should extend 
to those Puritans who had made another home for 
themselves in New England. A letter on this subject 
proves what a deep interest he took in the welfare of 
these pilgrims and their first Christian colony over 
the sea, the civil constitution of which the late peace 
with France had done much to cement. Since a bar 
had been put to the intrigues of the Cavaliers, Virginia 
and Maryland,Could no longer quarrel about their 
boundaries, sch calls Cromwell “the benefactor 
of the English in America; for in his time they en- 
joyed freedom of industry, of commerce, of religion, 
and of government.’”? 


1 G. Bancroft’s “ History of the United States of America.” 
Author's last revision. New York, 1835. Vol. i., p. 310. 


CROMWELL AS PROTECTOR. 161 


With his usual unerring judgment, he made use of 
these colonists to protect Jamaica, which had but 
recently been added to our possessions. When the 
Spaniards of Cuba and Mexico made another attempt 
to re-conquer that island, reinforcements from Scot- 
land and Ireland, from Barbadoes and New England, 
helped a brave commander to drive out the enemy for 
good and all. Since then the British flag has waved 
uninterruptedly in the very heart of the North Atlantic 
Ocean. 


CHAPTER XILf. 
DEATH OF CROMWELL. 


BATTLE OF THE DUNES.—STORM OF DUNKIRK.—CROMWELL 
AGAIN INTERFERES IN BEHALF OF THE PIEDMONTESE. 
—EXECUTION OF SLINGSBY AND HEWIT.—DEATH OF 
LADY ELIZABETH CLAYPOLE.—CROMWELL’S ILLNESS.— 
HIS DEATH.—HE IS BURIED AT WESTMINSTER.—HIS 
SON RICHARD SUCCEEDS HIM.—HIS RESIGNATION.— 
MONK TAKES THE COMMAND OF THE ARMY.—THE 
KINGS RETURN TO LONDON.—DISSOLUTION OF THE 
ARMY. 


N the meanwhile a decision was approaching on 

the principal scene of action. The Spaniards 
had pursued the French army under Turenne to 
West Flanders, and a battle was fought on the Dunes 
in sight of besieged Dunkirk. Cromwell’s regiments, 
under brave Sir William Lockhart, stormed one of 
the best defended sandhills, and repulsed not only 
the strongest troops of Don Juan de Austria, but 
also the English emigrants under the Duke of York. 
It was a victory both over the Spaniards and over the 
Stuart dynasty. On June 3rd Dunkirk surrendered, 
and was immediately converted into a bulwark of 


DEATH OF CROMWELL. 163 


English rule, English trade, and the Protestant faith, 
and quite made up for Calais, torn from our grasp a 
hundred years before. After these events, Mazarin’s 
nephews, the Duc de Crequi, and other French nobles, 
paid a visit to the court of the Protector, while Crom- 
well gave the necessary credentials to his son-in-law, 
Lord Fauconberg, then on his wedding tour, to enable 
him to kiss the hand of Louis XIV. 

The Anglo-French treaty was not a mortal blow to 
the Catholic powers, because, firstly, the House of 
Habsburg had been strengthened by the election of 
Emperor Leopold I., a fact due principally to Protes- 
tant potentates, such as Frederick William of Branden- 
burg ; and secondly, because Charles Gustavus had 
again attacked Denmark, after the hollow peace of 
Roeskild, the latter country being supported by the 
Empire, Poland, and Brandenburg. A _ Protestant 
Union appeared totally impracticable ; and about the 
same time the Protector, to his great sorrow, once 
more found himself obliged to raise his voice in favour 
of his protegées in Piedmont. Not only had John 
Milton composed official dispatches in May to the 
most Christian King, to the Cardinal and the Helvetic 
Union, urging them to support the treaty of Pignerol, 
which the Duke of Savoy was openly breaking, but 
the Protector sent personal instructions to Sir William 
Lockhart, by which he hoped to meet these fresh 
deeds of violence. Then he reminded the King of 
France of the promise of his great ancestor, Henry IV., 
which was solemnly registered in 1592 by the Parlia- 
ment of the Dauphiné in favour of these poor people, 
and even proposed an exchange of territories, which 
he had been contemplating for some time, so as to 


164 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


place the Vaudois, if possible, under the more tolerant 
French crown. 

But neither in this nor any other point was he 
fated to be thoroughly successful in making his name 
respected. And this was quite in keeping with the 
state of things at home, where, though no one had 
been able to resist him, he had nevertheless been 
unable to reconcile with his absolute authority those 
men who had formerly been on his side, but now 
stood up fora Free-state and unrestrained Sectarianism. 
His harsh treatment, not only of men like Harrison 
and Wildman, but of General Lambert, arose from 
the great anxiety he felt about the spirit of his army. 
In former days the troops had prided themselves 
on their religious enthusiasm and their independent 
debates, but now Cromwell endeavoured to keep all 
that down as much as possible. The dethroned Ana- 
baptists especially, whom he had once so openly en- 
couraged, and whose sentiments he had expressed at 
Dunbar, were most indignant, and in their frantic 
rage sold themselves to Charles II., from whom they 
expected more liberty of conscience than from their 
old patron. He found himself surrounded by enemies 
on every side, and saw their plots daily gaining 
strength. What had he gained by forbidding the 
Anglicans to practise their ritual in public? They 
remained faithful to the monarchy and were still not 
uprooted. Royalists and Catholics had been driven 
with great cruelty from the capital, and the worst 
offenders thrown into prisons already filled to over- 
flowing. In consequence of a hint from Cromwell 
himself, Lord Ormond hurriedly left his hiding-place 
in the City, and escaped across the sea. Then the 


DEATH OF CROMWELL. 165 


extreme party, fired with hope of being able to throw 
off their heavy yoke and prepare for the landing of 
their deliverer, conceived the wild idea of overpowering 
the sentries at Whitehall and the Tower on the night 
of May 15th, and then to set fire to the capital. But 
as usual, the highest authorities had been informed, 
and the ringleaders were arrested when they were 
together one day at the well-known tavern, The 
Mermaid, in Cheapside. The High Court of Justice, 
which since 1656 had enjoyed the most unlimited 
powers, sat in Westminster Hall as it had once done 
for the trial of Charles I., and pronounced judgment 
on these rebels. The most prominent among them 
were Sir Henry Slingsby, Knight, from Yorkshire, 
and John Hewit, Doctor of Divinity. The latter was 
related to Lord Fauconberg, who had lately married 
the Protector’s daughter—indeed, he had joined them 
in matrimony. Perhaps for that very reason there 
was no mercy for them as there was for some poor 
wretches. In vain one demanded a jury, while the 
other pleaded his sacred calling. On June 8th they 
both suffered on Tower Hill. 

Nevertheless, the ferment in the population still 
continued. After the dissolution of Parliament, even 
hardworking citizens lost faith in the guardian of 
their peace. The merchants had, up to the present, 
lost much and gained nothing by the war with Spain. 
As to the City, it could not be induced to advance a 
loan. Several cases of refusal to pay the taxes helped 
to kindle the spirit of opposition. The Parliamentary 
Government had become a most intricate problem to 
the Protector, while, from without, a treaty between 
France and Spain, which might happen any day, 

M 2 


166 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


would undo all he had gained by his brilliant successes. 
And what, a prospect this would open to the exiled 
King! Differences of opinion penetrated even into 
the bosom of the Protector’s family. The majority 
of his relatives still hoped that the new order would 
be firmly established, and that they would retain the 
privileges enjoyed at Whitehall. But brave Henry, 
who was commanding in Ireland, saw plainly that 
everything depended on the life of his father. Crom- 
well’s brother-in-law, Desborow, and son-in-law, Fleet- 
wood, were not in the least inclined to deny the old 
spirit of their party ; and the Protector was continually 
speculating how he could best win over these godly 
men, his own flesh and blood. 

But he was worn out before his time by self-reproach 
for the violent means he had been obliged to use to 
ensure his country’s peace and the triumph of the 
Protestant faith, and was confronted by death just as 
his thorny path of life had reached a dizzy height. 
The constant worry and anxiety about the success of 
his many plans undermined his domestic arrangements 
and simple home-life. The attacks of fever, of which 
the seeds had probably been sown during his many 
years’ stay among the unhealthy marshes of Ely, 
became alarmingly frequent. A blood-disease, indi- 
cated very early by his red swollen face and irritable 
sanguine temperament, was about to declare itself. A 
succession of deaths among those dearest to him filled 
him with grief. In February young Rich had died; in 
April followed his grandfather and old friend, Lord War- 
wick. While Cromwell himself was at Hampton Court 
for change of air, his favourite daughter, Lady Elizabeth 
Claypole, fell ill there. In an agony of grief he sat 


DEATH OF CROMWELL. 167 


by her bedside night and day, to give his beloved 
child spiritual consolation in her great suffering. She 
died on August 6th ; and it was reported that, in her 
last agony, she spoke warningly of the execution of 
the King, and of the expiation that must unavoidably 
follow ıt. A faithful chronicler of the Protector’s 
last days cannot repress his admiration of the fortitude 
of this great soul in the midst of so many conflicting 
anxieties and personal griefs. On the 20th he was 
seen by George Fox, the Quaker, as with death in 
his face, he rode through the park surrounded by his 
guards. On the 21st he returned to town, by the 
urgent advice of his doctors. Nothing they could do, 
however, stayed the fatal progress of the disease. 
His last hour approached while fervent prayers for 
his recovery were uttered in the adjoining rooms and 
in the churches, as well as in many a lonely chamber. 
He himself muttered many curious and mystic sen- 
tences. He spoke much of the “ Covenants” which 
God had made with man. When he was seized with 
fear of “ falling into the hands of the living God,” he 
tranquillized himself by the firm conviction that “he 
was once in grace.” The prayer has been preserved 
which he uttered while a frightful thunderstorm swept 
over London and the plains on the 30th. As late as 
September 3rd he was heard to murmur: “I would 
be willing to live to be farther serviceable to God and 
his People, but my work is done. Yet God will be 


with His People.” * 
The fate of Great Britain and of the world in general 


1 “ Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,” part x., “Death of the 
Protector.” | 


168 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


would indeed have been very different ıf this ruler 
had attained the three-score years of the Psalmist, 
He died at Whitehall, where, not ten years before, 
the King had been led to execution, between three 
and four o’clock in the afternoon, on the anniversary 
of his victories at Dunbar and Worcester, a day which 
had hitherto been kept as a national holiday. Those 
who had trembled when he was alive declared that his 
soul had been carried to hell in that thunderstorm. 

On November 23rd the remains of the great Oliver 
were buried at Westminster,in the chapel of Henry VII. 
His eldest son Richard succeeded to the Proctectorate, 
like a prince of the blood, though ıt was not known 
with any sort of certainty how far his dying father 
had approved of this, or what hopes he had enter- 
tained of the succession. This is no place to describe 
how the lazy and indolent nature of this son was per- 
fectly incapable of supporting the Parliament against 
the opposition of ambitious officers; how, when the 
mutilated remains of the Long Parliament were re- 
called to life by a combination of republican and 
military elements, he resigned his office as early as 
April, 1659; and how the reaction steadily gained 
ground and finally carried all before it. 

The anti-republican party secured a decided advan- 
tage when all the remaining members elected in 1640 
were suspended, and the order for fresh elections was 
a decided victory in the King’s favour. Lambert 
tried in vain to place the army at the head of affairs. 
Supported by the Conservative party, Monk crossed 
the country from Edinburgh to London, nominally to 
maintain peace and order, and having thus paved the 
way, Charles II. entered London on May 29th, 1660, 


DEATH OF CROMWELL. 169 


amid the wildest rejoicings of all classes, having by 
no means bound himself to preserve either civil or 
religious liberty. The army was at once dissolved, a 
number of men who had sat in judgment upon 
Charles I. were delivered to execution, and the bones 
of the great Protector, as well as those of his mother, 
Blake, and Pym, dragged from their resting-places in 
the Abbey, while Cromwell’s mouldering head was 
stuck over Westminster Hall like that of a common 
felon. 

The mighty one and his creation came to grief 
simply because they could not fill up the breach occa- 
sioned by their own acts. Even after the fall of the 
King there was always a certain void in a constitution 
which would not be made into a republic. The creator 
of the army had also to control civil authority, and 
when he wanted to control both parties he unavoidably 
gave offence to the troops. He did not dare endanger 
the entire system by recalling the old traditions, and 
up to the very last sought in vain to find their equiva- 
lent. Consequently the fate of his mission was em- 
bodied in the extraordinary position to which he had 
raised himself, which so forcibly brought out the 
striking contrasts of hig character that it is impossible 
to judge him by an ordinary standard. Confiding in 
his influence, he called himself ‘‘ Protector of the 
three nations by the grace of God,” just as the King 
had done, and had his own effigy struck on the coins 
of the Commonwealth, with the motto “ Pax quaeritur 
bello.” But hardly had he closed his eyes when his 
whole creation fell to pieces. The Protectorate, the 
House of Lords, the United Parliament, the standing 
army, the free development of the church—all gave 


170 OLIVER CROMWELL. 


way before the violent reaction, and were replaced by | 
the old institutions. 

But, as Carlyle remarks, “ their works follow them, 
as I think this Oliver Cromwell’s works have done 
and are still doing.” He alone attempted what was 
only accomplished in the nineteenth century, after a 
painful struggle, namely, the Parliamentary and Pro- 
testant Union of the three nations; and he alone re- 
constructed the Election Laws for town and country, 
which were entirely in the hands of the privileged 
classes until the Reform Bill of 1832. He endeavoured 
thoroughly to separate the religious opinions, both of 
the individual and of the church in general, from civil 
life in the state. The political questions, which fore- 
shadowed a new era in English history, could not be 
decided by the Usurper, but solely by a constitutional 
monarchy. But on the other hand, Cromwell, with 
his strong national feeling and unceasing opposition 
to Rome, walked in the footsteps of those who, both 
before and after him, rallied the popular forces under 
the Protestant flag. Indeed, he dealt the Catholic 
tendencies of Habsburg and Spain a blow from which 
they have never quite recovered. Under his rule our 
island-kingdom obtained that position with regard to 
Europe and the rest of the world which it has main- 
tained until to-day, in spite of many storms. 

Oliver Cromwell must not be compared with such 
men as Julius Cesar or Napoleon Bonaparte. In 
England, with its ancient institutions grown up out 
of Germanic roots, imperialism has just as little chance 
of succeeding as a republic would have as conceived 
by idealists hke Vane and Sydney, and those who, in 
our own day, would like to Americanize the old world. 


DEATH OF CROMWELL. 1m 


But the general opinion about this powerful man 
remains the same as when, in 1654, Milton exclaimed 
enthusiastically: “To you our country owes its liber- 
ties; nor can you sustain a character at once more 
momentous and more august, than that of the author, 
the guardian, and the preserver of our liberties; and 
hence you have not only eclipsed the achievements of 


all our kings, but even those which have been fabled 
of our heroes.” ! 


* “Second Defence of the People of England” (Bohn’s 
Library), vol. i., p. 289. 


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Poems, Letters, &c. With Memoir of 
Roscoe and Portrait of Lorenzo. 


RUSSIA, History of, from the 
earliest Period to the Crimean War. by 
W. K. Kelly. 3 Portraits. 2 vols. 


SCHILLER’S Works. 6vols. WV. S. 

Vol. I1.—Thirty Years’ War—Revolt in 
the Netherlands. Rev A. J. W. Morrison, 
M.A. Portrait. 

Vol. II. —Revolt inthe Netherlands, com- 
pleted—Wallenstein. By J. Churchill and 
S. T. Coleridge.—William Tell. Sir Theo- 
dore Martin. Engraving (after Vandyck). 

Vol. 111.—Don Carlos. R. D. Boylan 
—Mary Stuart. Mellish — Maid of Or- 
leans. Anna Swanwick—Bride of Mes- 
sina, A. Lodge, M.A. Together with the 
Use of the Chorus in Tragedy (a short 
Essay). Engravings. 

These Dramas are all translated in metre. 


Vol. 1V.—Robbers—Fiesco—Love and 
Intrigue—Demetrius—Ghost Seer—Sport 
of Divinity. 

The Dramas in this volume are in prose. 

Vol. V.—Poems. E. A. Bowring, C.B. 

Vol. VI.—Essays, /sthetical and Philo- 
sophical, including the Dissertation on the 
Connexion between the Animal and Spiri- 
tual in Man. 





8 BOHN'’S LIBRARIES. 





SCHILLER and GOETHE. Corre- 
spondence between, from A.D. 1794-1805. 
With Short Notes by L. Dora Schmitz. 
2vols. N. S. 


SCHLEGEL’S (F.) Lectures on the 
Philosophy of Life and the Philosophy of 
Language. By A. J. W. Morrison. 


—— TheHistory of Literature, Ancient 
and Modern. 


—— The Philosophy of History. With 


Memoir and Portrait. 


— Modern History, with the Lectures 
entitled Caesar and Alexander, and The 


Beginning of our History. By L. Purcel 
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SCHLEGEL (A. W.) Dramatic Art 
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moir by A. J. W. Morrison. Portrait. 


SCHUMANN (Robert), His Life and 
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SKEAT (Rev. W. W.)— See Chaucer. 


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The specimens of early French, Italian, 
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SMITH’S (Adam) The Wealth of 
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SMITH’S (Adam) Theory of Moral 
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STURM’S Morning Communings 
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SULLY. Memoirs of the Duke of, 
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TROYE’S (Jean de). — See Philip de 


Commines. 
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VASARI. Lives of the most Eminent 
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Mrs. J. Foster, with selected Notes. Por- 
trait. 6 vols., Vol. VI. being an additional 
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WERNER’S Templars in Cyprus. 
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WESLEY, the Life of, and the Rise 
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WHEATLEY. A Rational Illustra- 
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Wesley, and 





HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARIES. 9 











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10 BOHN’S LIBRARIES. 





THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY. 


15 Vols. at 55. each, excepting those marked otherwise. 


BLEEK. Introduction to the Old 
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EVAGRIUS. History of the Church, 
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HARDWICK. History ofthe Articles 
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Documents from A.D. 1536 to A.D. 1615. 
Ed. by Rev. F. Proctor. N. S. 


HENRY’S (Matthew) Exposition of 
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PEARSON (John, D.D.) Exposition 
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History of. —See Sozomen. 


SOCRATES’ Ecclesiastical History. 
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Theodosius II. With Short Account of 
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marks by Valesius, and Short Memoir, 
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With Notes and brief Life. 


THEODORET and EVAGRIUS. His- 
tories of the Church from A.D. 332 to the 
Death of Theodore of Mopsuestia, A.D. 
427; and from A.D. 431 to A.D. 544. With 
Memoirs. 


WIESELER’S (Karl) Chronological 
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ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. — See 
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ASSER’S Life of Alfred.—Sce Six O.E. 
Chronicles. 

BEDE’S (Venerable) Ecclesiastical 
History of England. ‘Together with the 
ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. With Notes, 
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1:3, toiles,- CG; 


BOETHIUS’S Consolation of Philo- 
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opposite pages, Notes, Introduction, and 
Glossary, by Rev. S. Fox, M.A. To 
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the Metres OF Boeruius, with a free 
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BRAND’S Popular Antiquities of 
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CHRONICLES of the CRUSADES. 
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of the various Games and Customs asso- 
ciated with different Days of the Year in 
the British Isles, arranged according to the 
Calendar. By the Rev. T. F. Thiselton 
Dyer, M.A. 


EARLY TRAVELS IN PALESTINE. 
Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, 
Willibald, Bernard, Sewulf, Sigurd, Ben- 
jamin of "Tudela, Sir John Maundeville, 
De la Brocquiere, and Maundrell; all un- 
abridged. With Introduction and Notes 
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ANTIQUARIAN LIBRARY. IJ 





ELLIS (G.) Specimens of Early En- 
glish Metrical Romances, relating to 
Arthur, Merlin, Guy of Warwick, Richard 
Coeur de Lion, Charlemagne, Roland, &c. 
&c. With Historical Introduction by J. O. 
Halliwell, F.R.S. Illuminated Frontis- 
piece from an old MS. 


ETHELWERD. Chronicle of.— See 
Stix O. E. Chronicles. 


FLORENCE OF WORCESTER’S 
Chronicle, with the Two Continuations : 
comprising Annals of English History 
from the Departure of the Romans to the 
Reign of Edward I. Trans., with Notes, 
by Thomas Forester, M.A. 


GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH. 
Chronicle of.—See Six O. E. Chronicles. 


GESTA ROMANORUM, or Enter- 
taining Moral Stories invented by the 
Monks. Trans. with Notes by the Rev. 
CharlesSwan. Edit. by W. Hooper, M.A. 


GILDAS. Chronicle of.—See Six O. E. 
Chronicles. 


GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS’ Histori- 
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Ireland, and History of the Conquest of 
Ireland, by Th. Forester, M.A. Itinerary 
through Wales, and Description of Wales, 
by Sir R. Colt Hoare. 


HENRY OF HUNTINGDON’S His- 
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vasion to the Accession of Henry 11.; 
with the Acts of King Stephen, and the 
Letter to Walter. By T. Forester, M.A. 
Frontispiece from au old MS. 


INGULPH’S Chronicles of the Abbey 
of Croyland, with the CoNTINUATION by 
Peter of Blois and others. Trans. with 
Notes by H. T. Riley, B.A. 


KEIGHTLEY’S (Thomas) Fairy My- 
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Superstition of Various Countries. Frontis- 
piece by Cruikshank. JV. S. 


LEPSIUS’S Letters from Egypt, 
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which are added, Extracts from his 
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ence to the Exodus of the Israelites. By 
L. and J. B. Horner. Mapsand Coloured 
View of Mount Barkal. 


MALLET’S Northern Antiquities, or 
an Historical Account of the Manners, 
Customs, Religions, and Literature of the 
Ancient Scandinavians. Trans. by Bishop 
Percy. With Translation of the PRosE 
Eppa, and Notes by J. A. Blackwell. 
Also an Abstract of the ‘ Eyrbyggia Saga 
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MARCO POLO’S Travels; with Notes 
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MATTHEW PARIS’S English His- 
tory, from 1235 to 1273. By Rev. J. A. 
Giles, D.C.L. With Frontispiece. 3 vols.— 
See also Roger of |) endover. 


MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER’S 
Flowers of History, especially such as re- 
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ginning of the World to A.D. 1307. By 
C. D. Yonge. 2 vols. 


NENNIUS. Chronicle of.— See Sir 
O. E. Chronicles. 


ORDERICUS VITALIS’ Ecclesiastical 
History of Englandand Normandy. With 
Notes, Introduction of Guizot, and the 
Critical Notice of M. Delille, by T. 
Forester, M.A. To which is added the 
CHRONICLE OF St. EvROULT. With Gene- 
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PAULTS (Dr. R.) Life of Alfred the 
Great. To which is appended Alfred's 
ANGLO-SAXON VERSION OF Orosius. With 
literal Translation interpaged, Notes, and 
an ANGLO-SAXON GRAMMAR and Glossary, 
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RICHARD OF CIRENCESTER. 
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ROGER DE HOVEDEN’S Annals of 
English History, comprising the History 
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rope from A.D. 732 to A.D. 1201. With 
Notes by H. T. Riley, B.A. 2 vols. 


ROGER OF WENDOVER’S Flowers 
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SIX OLD ENGLISH CHRONICLES : 
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cester. Edit., with Notes, by J. A. Giles, 
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WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY’S 
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the Earliest Period to King Stephen. By 
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YULE-TIDE STORIES. A Collection 
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NOW READY. 
1. BACON’S Essays. With Introduction and Notes. 


2. LESSING’S LAOKOON. Beasley’s Translation, revised, with Intro- 
duction, Notes, &c., by Edward Bell, M.A. 


3. DANTE’S INFERNO. Translated, with Notes, by Rev. H. F. Cary. 


4. GOETHE’S FAUST. Part I. Translated, with Introduction, by 
Anna Swanwick. 


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Translated by J. Oxenford. 


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. THE QUEEN’S ENGLISH. By the late Dean Alford. 


2 
8. LIFE AND LABOURS OF THE LATE THOMAS BRASSEY. By Sir 
iy Helps,. CBs 


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With Introductions. 


Io. MOLIERE’S PLAys: The Miser—Tartuffe—The Shopkeeper turned 
Gentleman. With brief Memoir. 


II. GOETHE’S REINEKE FOX, in English Hexameters. By A. Rogers. 
“a2, OLIVER GOLDSMITH’S PLAYS, 
13. LESSING’S PLAYS : Nathan the Wise—Minna von Barnhelm. 
14. PLAUTUS’S COMEDIES: Trinummus — Menaechmi — Aululeria — 
Captivi. 
To be followed at intervals of a fortnight by 
THE BATTLE DAYSof WATERLOO. | THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. 


PAULI’S LIFE OF OLIVER CROM- | SHERIDAN’S PLAYS. 





WELL. PAULI’S LIFE OF ALFRED THE 
STERNE’S SENTIMENTAL GREAT. 
JOURNEY. HAUFF’S CARAVAN. 





LONDON? GEORGE BELL AND SONS, 





London: Printed by STRANGEwAYS & Sons, Tower Street, Cambridge Circus, W.C.
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